


Dog Teeth

by Scumprince



Category: Stranger Things - Fandom
Genre: Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Domestic Violence, F/M, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Rape/Non-con Elements, Sexual Violence, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-01
Updated: 2021-02-01
Packaged: 2021-03-12 22:28:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 12
Words: 60,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29142993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scumprince/pseuds/Scumprince
Summary: You're cold on the inside,there's a dog in your heartand it tells you to tear everything apart.My body's covered in teeth marks.Your bite's worse than your bark.You ruin everything you touch anddestroy anyone you love.You're all over me.
Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Maxine "Max" Mayfield, Maxine "Max" Mayfield/Lucas Sinclair
Kudos: 19





	1. Flowers of Flesh and Blood

**Author's Note:**

> If you have been here before, it’s because this was originally a series that I have decided to merge into a 1 part section with chapters, just so I can clean up my account.  
> I will also take the time to clean up, add, and further edit everything. 
> 
> It will probably help to get the gears turning again for Cherry Wine.

He wasn’t sure when his loathing towards Max had begun, or if it was even a loathing to begin with.  
All Billy knew was that he had suffered greatly because of his step sister, and to be quite frank, he was getting sick of having to babysit the little red headed bitch.  
She was always sneaking around, out all hours of the night with that group of geeks, and always getting _him_ into trouble; but enough was enough, he’d teach her one way or another how to behave, and how to stop putting him through shit. He’d learnt over the years that Max could be obedient, all it took was a little push on his end; but one way or another, the dynamic between the two was going to change.

The grip on his steering wheel tightened as he was reminded of the bat to the balls incident that took place in the Byers’ house the year before.  
Fucking Max and her fucking friends he thought, ashing his cigarette as his eyes wandered to his step sister, whose fingers were intwined with Lucas Sinclair’s.  
The mere image of that fucking kid made Billy’s blood boil and if it wasn’t for the witnesses, he would’ve happily put that kids fucking head through the brick wall of the school house.

But, he didn’t, he just scowled as Max walked towards the camaro before climbing in, throwing her bag down in front of her feet; she hadn’t gotten her seatbelt on before Billy peeled out of the school parking lot and headed towards their home.

Tonight, things were going to change, his eyes flickered momentarily to Max whose red hair had fallen in front of her face while she inspected the trucks of her skateboard.  
Things were gonna change, whether Max wanted them to or not.

*****

Thankfully, their parents were out of town for the night, Max fixed them dinner that Billy didn’t eat; he just sat and watched her intently as she ate and worked at the kitchen table on her homework.  
Everything she did in some way or another, pissed Billy off to no end, yet, he couldn’t help but be around her.  
Even if it was to torment her.

“Max.”

She looks up from her books, her brow furrowed. “What?”

“Do you want to play a game?” He questions, butting out his cigarette in the ashtray beside him.

“A game?” She responds shaking her head lightly, turning back to her books. “I have homework to do.”  
He clenched his jaw at her response, he missed the obedience, the _fear_ , the way she used to obey his every word.  
Ever since the day she swung at him with the bat, she stopped listening; and that was something Billy wasn’t going to stand for.

“It’ll be fun.” He tries. “If you win, I’ll give you $20.”

She looks up again, sighing, she’d never been one to pass up an offer when it included money. “Fine.”

“Go to your room, I’ll meet you there.”

She hesitates at first, but obeys, packing up her books and heading into her room. She puts them back into her bag and sits on her bed, waiting for Billy.  
He comes in shortly after, carrying rope. She eyes it for a minute before turning to look at him.

“What is that for?” She looks back at the rope. It’s blue and white, and there’s a lot of it.

“It’s for our game.” He says simply. “C’mon Max, you aren’t scared are you?” He smirks at her.

“No.” She responds, standing up. “What are the rules?”  
He laughs, licking his teeth, “Simple rules. You have one minute to get out of the binds. If you win, you get $20.”

“And if I lose?”

“I don’t drive you to school for a week.”

The rules seemed nice enough, and Max was happy to oblige. Ever since she stuck up for herself last year, she found that she wasn’t so scared of Billy anymore.  
In fact, she could almost trust him slightly to behave; after all he did seem like someone who wanted to keep his manhood. Since that night at the Byers, Billy had learnt to behave, so Max would occasionally let her guard slip. 

Billy started by looping the rope around her sternum, just below her chest, he then moved to tie the rope above her chest; so he had two sections, above and below her tits.  
He then looped the rope over one shoulder, pulling it under the first section, over her left breast, and through the second section. He did the same to the other side so the rope formed a perfect ‘W’ over her tits.

Max looks down, slightly confused. “Billy?”

“Shh.” He says, pulling the rope around to the back, before moving her hands into place so they came to rest at the small of her back. “$20 is $20 Max, I can’t make it easy for you, can I?” He quips.

That much was true, she thought.

He continued to tie the rope in loops around her small wrists before securing them with a knot. He tugged at the rope to make sure it wouldn’t come loose at all before stepping back to admire his work, when he was sufficiently happy with what he had accomplished, he moved close to Max, grabbing her throat with one hand.

It was at this point, that the young red head began to realise how stupid she had been in trusting Billy.

“I’ve always loved your naivety, Max.” He whispered against her ear.

Her breathing began to increase as she realised the danger she was in; how could she have been so dumb to believe Billy wouldn’t do something like this? She had always been smarter than that.  
He grabbed her hips to turn her around to face him, the fear that swam in her eyes was enough to make his dick twitch; he revelled in her fear, almost got high off it.  
It had been such a long, long time since he had seen it in her eyes and _God,_ it felt good to have it back.

“Things are gonna start to change around here, Maxxy.” He murmurs, leading her towards the bed before shoving her hard so she falls back on to the mattress.

“B-Billy, please.” She chokes, looking up at him awkwardly, the position she was laying in made it difficult for her to see him. “Untie me.”

“But that wasn’t the deal.” He chuckles. “You agreed to untie yourself. So untie yourself.”

He watched her wiggle and strain against her binds, trying to free herself to no avail. He couldn’t help but laugh at how helpless she looked, how the fear and confusion on her face made his heart race.  
He reached into his back pocket and lit a cigarette as she continued to struggle; trying her hardest to undo his handy work.

He leaned over and put out his cigarette on her bed side table and sighed, inching closer towards her.  
“Times up, little sister.” He said with a hint of of amusement in his voice. “Looks like you lose.”

She lets out a soft laugh, trying her best to stay calm. “Okay, game over, I lose. Untie me.”

He grabs her knees in his hands as he towers over her. “Not happening.” He pushes her legs apart and presses a hand against her stomach. “You’re not going to be untied until I’ve had my fun.”

She tries to wiggle away from him but he’s holding her firmly. “Billy stop it, please.” She begs and oh how her begging was music to his ears.

He tugs at her shirt to expose some of her stomach, her skin is pale, almost like milk, and the thought of cutting her open momentarily crosses his mind.  
“You know.” He begins idly, “I’ve put up with your shit for so long. Too long, in fact.” He reaches down and pops the button on her jeans. “I was thinking today in the car, about the best way to punish you for how disobedient you’ve been lately. You’ve gotten away with far too much shit of late Max. Always going out with your friends.” He pulls on her jeans hard, almost pulling her off the bed with them. He tosses them across the room before turning back to her. “Never telling me where you’re going, always out late, giving me so much fucking attitude.” He licks his lips at the sight of her pink cotton panties. “Nows high time you learn a valuable lesson, little sister.”

He reaches down to tug off her panties and Max takes the opportunity to land a harsh kick against his stomach, hard enough to send him toppling to the ground. It confuses him for a moment but he’s back on his feet the same time Max realises just how helpless she really is in that very moment.

“Fucking cunt!” He yells. “You stupid, stupid bitch!” He wrestles with her for a moment before getting the upper hand and flipping her over on to her stomach. “You know, I’ve tried really hard to keep my cool. Every time you go out of your way to fuck me over, I stayed quiet, but enough is enough. You’ve got a fucking storm coming, Max, and you’re not going to enjoy it one bit.”

She hears the familiar sound of Billy’s switch blade opening and terror spills through her body like electricity and she tries to turn her head to see what he’s doing, but she can’t get the right angle.

“I’m sorry!” She yells, trying to calm him down. “Billy please, I swear I’ll do whatever you say. Just let me go.” She begs, saying whatever she thinks he might want to hear.

He ignores her, using the switchblade to cut away the fabric of her shirt; she sucks in a harsh breath as the blade nicks skin. He tears the rest of her top away, exposing her back. He cuts off her bra, a difficult thing to do with the rope in the way, but he manages easily enough.  
He moves to her panties next and cuts those away too, pulling hard on the fabric so it rips away from her groin; causing her to yell out in discomfort and pain.

“I’m going to show you what exactly happens when you piss me off.” She hears the sound of his belt unbuckling, and the sound of the zip being pulled down on his jeans.

Oh god, what the hell was he going to do to her?

Billy laughed as he watched his step sister writhe against her bondage, trying her hardest to break free. He threw his head back and chuckled; she reminded him of a hog tied pig he’d seen at the spring fair the first year they had come to Hawkin’s.  
He watches as her thin fingers wrap over the rope, trying to untie it.

He reaches towards her, his hands gripping her waist to pull her up into a kneeling position, he pushes hard on her back so she can curve her ass up more towards him so he can gain better access to her pussy.  
He ran a hand over belly and her cunt, feeling the smooth remnants of her; he could pick up the faint spays of hair, but there wasn’t much.

 _Hairless, just how I like it_. He thought to himself. He couldn’t hear her as she cried into the mattress but he did tug at her hair so she was looking at him.  
“What’s the matter Max, don’t you like this?”

“No.” She choked out. Her voice was hoarse and gravelly, she was already panting but Billy knew it was only because her face was pushed into the hot mattress and her long red hair didn’t help in trying to cool her down.

He pushes his thumb against her clit and she instantly stiffens, he presses down lightly and begins to rub small circles against her. She tries to wriggle away from him, but he grips her waist hard and holds her in place so she can’t get away from his touch.  
He stops momentarily to suck his fingers, slathering them in saliva; getting them nice and wet so they can slip into Max with much more ease.  
He returns his thumb to its original spot and attempts to slide one of his digits into his step sisters cunt. He can’t even manoeuvre it past the first knuckle before he starts to hit trouble.

She was so unbelievably tight. He was surprised that she hadn’t already whored herself out to that black fuck, Sinclair. He applies a bit more of pressure and with some resistance, he finally manages to push his finger into her up to his third knuckle. He hears her groan as she tries to fight against him; he couldn’t understand why she was always fighting him at every turn.  
He pulls his finger out, stopping his assault on her clit and pushes his finger back in. It was hard for him to fight his way into her, she was so tight and she was barely wet at all.

No problem, he’d worked with sluts that were dryer than Max; but on the contrary, they hadn’t been as tight.  
He pulls his finger out and adds a second, doing his best to stretch her out; his breathe hitches as he struggles to even fit a second digit.

“You know Max,” His voice is husky with lust, and his breathing is slightly heavy. “This would be so much easier for you if you stopped fighting me.”  
He looks at the way her face scrunches up in discomfort and her jaw clenches as he continues to finger fuck his way inside of her.

He wasn’t sure why she was complaining, he was being nice to her; hell, he could’ve just fucked her raw and turn her insides into sludge, but no, he was treating her kindly.  
It was more than she deserved anyway.

He begins to use scissor motions with her fingers in an attempt to open her up more; his patience was, however, wearing incredibly thin, he removes his fingers and spits directly onto her opening, smearing his saliva around her hole, trying to get her slick enough for him to slide in to.  
He pulls himself free, he’s already so hard, and he sucks in a deep breath as he positions herself at her opening.  
He uses his free hand to pull her pussy lip open as wide as it’ll go so he can push himself in better; he struggles to move his hips so he can get the tip inside of her. He grunts, his brow furrowing as he pushes against her. He moves his hand away from her pussy and grips her hips, pulling her against him as he pushes in; and finally, with extreme resistance and an audible noise, he manages to work his way in to her.  
It is only the tip, but he takes a sigh of relief as he feels her squeezing around him, he’s waiting a moment, before he tries to push into her any further.

“B-billy.” She chokes out, her voice strange and faraway, as if she’s not really there. The pure sound of her drives Billy almost mad with ecstasy and he can’t control himself; he drills his way into her in one harsh thrust and quickly moves to press a pillow over her head as she screams in pure agony. He chuckles as her legs kick up in down in protest and pain, the only thing she can really move.

He slides his hand over her belly again and down towards her pelvis, his hand lifts slightly as it slides over a bump; and he smirks, he can feel his cock through Max and that’s something he knows he’ll probably never experience with another girl again.  
He pulls himself halfway out before slamming back in to her; this time, no sound escapes her lips. He had taken the pillow off her head after she stopped screaming, and it was surprising to him that this time, she made no noise.  
He touches his finger tips to her cheek, and her eyes open. They dart around the room quickly before she’s side eyeing, trying to get a look at Billy.

He’s instantly on top of the world when he sees it; the fear.

“Max, how come you never fucked Sinclair?” Her questions, he rolls his hips, so he doesn’t have to pull out but so he can at least get a bit of pleasure as he waits for her to answer. Only, she doesn’t say a word.

He scowls at her, but there’s no harm done on her part, he’ll make her answer one way or another.

“Maaaax.” He taunts. “I asked you a question.” He pulls out of her and slams back into her with such force that he could’ve sworn he almost impales her.

“I don’t know!” She screams in response, a sob escaping her lip, “I don’t know! I don’t know! I don’t know!”

Her knuckles are turning white with how hard she’s gripping the rope around her wrists, he watches as she does her best to scrape against the rope, with the hope that she can try and cut away at the thick binds.

He continues to fuck her, his hips rutting against her arse, its taking so much effort on his end not to just thrust into her; she’s so unbelievably tight that its almost painful. He digs his fingers into her hips as he thrusts in and out of her, his breathing is heavy and he can feel the familiar pull in his stomach; he’s close to coming. He reaches his free hand under her and begins to roll small circles against her cunt; he notes that she’s given up on crying and has opted for making soft grunts each time he enters her.

“Do you know why I’m doing this, Max?” He asks.

She sniffs but doesn’t answer, he doesn’t try and make her answer this time. He just stops fucking her, wiping her hair out of her face and pinches her cheek.

“I’m trying to teach you a lesson, I told you before that I am sick of the way you’ve been getting away with this shit. So I’m teaching you a lesson.” He returns to fucking her, his hips picking up pace before he finally reaches his climax.  
“I’m gonna come inside you, little sister.” He teases.

Her legs begin to kick furiously under him, he can feel her feet hit his back, but its not much of a deterrent.  
“Billy, don’t!” She begs.  
He pushes her head further into the mattress as she pleads beneath him, before thrusting into her once more; coming hard.  
He tries to hold himself from falling onto her as he comes, white light bursts behind his eyes; he was sure this is what a real orgasm felt like. He’d come before, but never like this.  
He pushes himself as hard as he can against her to make sure every bit of his seed slips its way into her womb.

He’s still inside her when he leans down and chuckles against her ear. “What do you think your Mommy will do if something ever grew in your tummy Max?”

She takes a sharp inhale though the nose and a rough exhale through the mouth. “Please.” is all she can manage.

He holds himself as best he can before he slowly pulls out of her, he can see in the light of her room that his cock is slick with her own juices, but mostly her blood. He reaches down and picks up the top he cut away from her and wipes at his dick, getting rid of the mess. It was trash after all.

He looks at Max, who is lying still on the bed, shaking like a small bird caught by a cat. He grabs her legs and flips her onto her back so she’s facing him. A yelp of pain escapes her lips by the sudden movement; her cheeks are flushed red as is the rest of her pale skin. He looks down at her, stark naked in her bedroom; the only thing reflecting in her own blue eyes is fear and total defeat.  
Billy had done it, he had broken her. He bought down the Berlin Wall that was Max’s defence against him, and he was gifted the sweet, sweet vision of his little sisters fear.  
Nothing could compare to the look on her face in that very moment; her cheeks stained with tears, the cotton bed cover where her face was is drenched with sweat and tears as well.

“Don’t be sad, Max, I’ll get you off as well.” He licks his teeth before bending down in front of her. “If you dare kick me.” He warns, “I’ll wait for your Mom to come home, and then I’ll cut her up and fuck the corpse.” He places a hand on her knee. “Do you understand?” He pauses, when he gets no response, he reaches out and lands a harsh slap against her perky little tits. “Say you understand!”

“I understand!” She croaks out.

He rolls one of her nipples between his thumb and forefinger. “Good girl.” He takes his place on his knees in front of her, placing a hand on both of her thighs, dragging her across the bed closer to his face.  
She’s got a pretty little pussy. He thinks, as he looks at it. Through the blood and the redness, it was soft and pink. He uses his fingers to spread her lips apart so he can get a better look; her labia was pink too, almost delicate looking.  
A momentary flash of Billy biting it hard crossed his mind. _Later_. He thought.  
He moves his head closer to her hood and licks softly across the slit. She reacts instantly, trying to move away from him; this sensation must be unusual to her; it didn’t matter though, even if Max didn’t think she wanted it, her body sure did.

He holds her in place against him as he licks her once more; after a few quick sweeps over her clit, Billy plants his mouth over her; she tastes like copper, he knows its her blood, but she also tastes sweet too.  
He can’t pin the taste but its almost intoxicating.  
He sucks her softly, his tongue darting over her clit and he manages to entice a moan from her lips.

 _That’s it_. He laughs to himself. He snakes a hand up her body, over the rope, to his target; her soft little tits and her perky nipples. He pinches one softly, waiting for it to harden under his touch.  
He rolls it between his thumb and forefinger as he continues to lick and suck at her cunt. He kneads the soft skin of her breast, taking his hand away momentarily before bring it back down, hard against her chest.  
The shock of the slap causes her to involuntarily buck her hips into his face; allowing him better access to her.

When he knows she’s not going to try and move away from her, he takes his other hand and slips two fingers into her; even though he’d just been fucking her, hard, she was still so fucking tight.  
He begins to finger fuck her while he eats her out, twisting and tugging at her nipple; with all of the sensations happening at once, he knew she wouldn’t last much longer and he was right.

Her walls clenched involuntarily around his fingers and her back arched up off the bed, she came hard around his digits, a moan escaping her lips as she touched the sun and came hard around him.  
He takes his face away, and coos her as she reaches her high. “That’s it Max, see, now you can’t say you didn’t want this. Not since you just came harder than a slut on the weekend for me.” He stands up, “hear that Max? You came for me, your brother.”

He takes the fingers he just had inside of her and forces them into her mouth, wanting her to taste the cocktail of her come mixed with his and topped off with the blood from her since popped cherry. She gags on them, trying to pull her face away, but he stays in close proximity with an “Uh, uh, uh.”

He takes his fingers out of her mouth and tugs her onto her stomach, so he can untie the binds she’d been constricted in for however long it had been since he started fucking her. He pulls all of the rope away from her, admiring the marks it left; if they did bruise, nobody would be able to see them. Max was never without a sweater.

He tugs on his jeans and reaches into his back pocket, producing a $20 bill, he takes a seat next to Max who is still lying on her back, she’s trying to regain her breath, her eyes staring at the wall adjacent to her. He tosses the note by her face and she pays no mind to it.

“Max?” He brushes some hair out of her face, his touch is surprisingly gentle compared to the harsh way he had just treated her moments before. “I want you to remember how this felt, and to remember that even if you try and run away from me, if you try and leave, just remember, that a piece of me is always going to live in you.” And with that, he’s gone and Max is left alone, naked and sore, on her bed.

She doesn’t let herself cry, she’d shed so many tears over Billy, that there was no point in crying about this. She lays there, silent and stiff; staring at the wall, her mind afire with thoughts of what had just happened.  
A part of her tugged hard on her heart, a small piece of her thought that Billy loved her; with all of the dysfunction, with all of the arguing and all of the times Billy’s father beat him, and the times they were alone together; she really thought that a slice of him loved Max like a sister.

But on the contrary, she wasn’t sure she knew what love was, but she knew, for sure, that love wasn’t meant to feel like she was being fucked with a knife.  
In biology, they talked about the effects of venom, and how even though it was a liquid, it could still kill people; venom is not always in liquid form though, sometimes the most venomous things can take human form.

And Billy Hargrove was the most venomous thing of all.


	2. Alligator Blood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He'd always hold my head  
> Under the water a little too long  
> Cuz he wanted me to be all guts no glory  
> "All survivor, no guilt" he said  
> But he calls me his crocodile tears  
> While i'm chained up to the bed.

### Work Text:

When she woke up the next morning, all she could feel was pain in her stomach and it hurt so bad that she could barely breathe.  
Billy left her alone that morning, and didn’t speak to her at all as she moved into the bathroom to get ready for school.

After her shower, she went to the medicine cabinet in the kitchen and took some of the painkillers her mother had there and took them, before putting the rest in her bag for school.  
When she was ready she followed Billy out to his car and climbed into the passenger side and they drove to school in silence.  
When they pulled up in the car park, she moved to get out but Billy stopped her.

“Yes?” She asked softly.

“That boy you hang out with, the black one” he began, lighting a cigarette. “Stay away from him.”

“Billy-“ she started but he cut her off by turning to look at her.

“Cut the shit Max.” He blows a thick plume of smoke in her face and she turns away in disgust. “If I so much as catch you looking at him, you’ll really get it. You thought last night was bad, but little sister it can only get so much worse.” And with that, he climbed out of the car and slammed the door behind him.

*****

She couldn’t really concentrate too much on school, everything was hazy and she did her best to follow along with what the teacher was saying but it was no use, she was too engrossed in the things Billy had said to her this morning.

She knew his threats weren’t empty, he’d made that apparently clear to her early on in their relationship when he first became her brother.  
What Billy said goes and there was no way of stopping him once he had the thought in his mind.

When the bell rang for lunch she collected her bags and went to her locker, putting her things away and getting ready to head to the cafeteria to eat.  
When she closed her locker door she almost had a heart attack when she saw Lucas standing there.

He leaned in for a kiss but she moved away swiftly, turning her head to see if Billy was around.

“What’s wrong?” He questions.

“Nothing. I uhm, can you meet me by the gymnasium after school.” It’s not so much a question as it is a request and she offers him a soft, quiet smile before heading to the direction of the toilets. She sees Billy pass her in the hallway and stops him.

“What.” He huffs, he had a rule that she was never to speak to him at school, lest the rest of the world know he associated publicly with his loser sister.

“I’m gonna walk home, okay?” She whispers.

“Why?”

“I have detention, I uhm, I was late to class today and it was my third tardy so I. I’m gonna be here until later on, so you don’t have to wait for me.” She lied.

“Whatever.” He grunts, pushing past her.

She leaves and hides in the toilets for the remainder of lunch, her knees pressed against her chest while she cried silently about what she was going to do.  
She knew that Billy was crazy and she knew that if he ever caught her with Lucas, he’d surely kill him.

Part of her wondered if Billy was the way he was because of his Dad, and she knew it was, but she always wondered if he was salvageable, which she knew he wasn’t.  
She wipes her cheeks with toilet paper and splashed cold water on her face before heading to her last classes.

When she met with Lucas, she would try and find a reason to break up with him, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to. No matter if it would keep him safe.  
Max knew that even if her life was crazy she could always go to Lucas because he made her feel grounded and sane.

******

  
When Max met Lucas behind the gymnasium after class, she didn’t shy away from him when he tried to kiss her, and he offered to walk her home.

“Okay.” She says. “But we have to go the back way, Billy is in a mood today.”

She doesn’t have to say anymore, he knew that even though Max had taken the bat to his balls, it wouldn’t protect her from Billy and his sour moods.

Max and Lucas walked to her house hand in hand and she listened intently while Lucas told her about how Mike made their substitute math teacher cry.  
She felt safe with Lucas, despite the fact they were taking a back road to her house. She just couldn’t risk Billy seeing them.  
She had clear instructions to stay away from the Sinclair boy, but Max couldn’t keep away. She liked Lucas too much to listen to Billy and disobedience was always Max’s weak area.

When they finally reached her house, she made quick note of the fact that Billy’s car wasn’t in the drive way and they went in through the front door, her parents would be away until later that night too, so she didn’t have to worry about them either.  
She led Lucas into her room where they lounged around on her bed and Lucas continued to tell her stories about the trouble the party got into before she came along.

And Max laughed, really hard, so hard her sides hurt while Lucas told her, in great detail, about the time Dustin accidentally smacked his Mom in the face with a flying baseball and chipped her tooth after he tried to invent a glove that caught the ball for you so, in Dustin’s own words, “nerds could be baseball legends too”.

After the story, Lucas stared at Max for a while, twirling a piece of her hair between his fingers and told her how much he liked her.  
She scoffs, sitting up.

“Okay, Stalker.” She laughs. They’re sitting adjacent from each other now, and she smiles at him.

“Are you gonna ever stop calling me that?” He questions.

“Nope!” She answers, grinning.  
They lean into each other and their lips connect. Lucas had big, soft lips that Max could almost melt into and he always tasted like musk sticks.  
She leaned further forward so she could press into him harder and he wrapped his hands around her waist, before pushing her down so he was on top and she was lying on her back.  
Their kissing turned to a more harder make out session and Lucas slowly slid his hand under Max’s top and over her bra.

She pulled herself away only to breathe before planting her lips back on his.  
Whenever she kissed Lucas, warmth spread through her almost like lava and sometimes, if they did stuff like this, all of her nerves felt like they were on fire.  
But it was a good kind of burning, a burning that she felt deep in her stomach.

“I love you Max.” He whispers against her lips.

“I love you too, Lucas.” She replies.

They’re small moment of serenity is broken when she hears the front door slam shut and the familiar sound of her step brother roaring her name.

Max almost catapults Lucas off her as she scrambles off the bed.

“Fuck!” She hisses. “Lucas you’ve gotta go!”

He looks around the room frantically before his eyes lock on the window, he rushed to it and pulls it up. He’s about to climb out when Max’s door swings open and Billy Hargrove spills into her bedroom like an avalanche, picking up debris on his way in.

“Who the fuck-“

“Lucas go!” Max steps in front of Billy, trying to block him but he doesn’t even look at her when he shoves her hard to the ground.

“You fucking little grub.” He reaches for Lucas at the same time the Sinclair boy launches himself out of Max’s window, Billy almost grabs his ankle but just clips the heel of his shoe.

Lucas pelts across the lawn and over the street and Billy is about to go after him in the camero but Max wraps her hands around his waist and yells at him to stop.  
He grabs her hair in his fist and pulls her around to face him.

“What were you doing with that boy in your room that I explicitly told you to stay away from?” Billy asks, edging closer to Max.  
She’s still in shock about Lucas barely escaping Billy to respond.  
He’s inches from her face and yells harder. “What were you doing. With that fucking boy. In your fucking room. That I told you to stay away from!”

“Nothing.” Is all she can manage.

“Nothing?” He grabs her throat and pushes her hard against the wall, digging his fingers into her pants. “If it was fucking nothing Maxine, then why are you wet?”

A spark of disobedience ignited a flame in her and she shoves him, he stumbles back slightly but stands strong. “Get away from me!” She always wondered if Neil chose this house because it’s so secluded and they don’t have neighbours to hear the incessant yelling and arguing.

“You’re gonna regret that Max.” He’s back in her face. “You stupid cunt. You filthy fucking slut, Max! Why was he in MY HOUSE?!” He’s so furious he’s spitting and flecks of it land on Max’s face.  
“You fucked everything up, all of it. You’re done.”

She slaps him before she even has time to think, he’s shocked at first but the smile he sends her way is what truly strikes fear in her heart. He laughs, rubbing his cheek.

“You just wait.” He licks his teeth and she can see a flicker of rage in his eyes. “When your skank Mom comes home I’m gonna tell her exactly who her daughter fucks. And when she finds out you’ve had that black cock in your cunt, she’s gonna put you in a fucking hole Max and throw away the key!”

“You’re not gonna do that!” She yells back, tears welling in her eyes. “You won’t!”

“Oh yeah? And why’s that?”

“You’re not man enough!”

The backhand isn’t what has her in tears, it’s the sting that shoots its way up into her head that does it. She clutches her cheek and cries as Billy towers over her. She shouldn’t have said it, how could she have been so stupid.

He pulls her up and throws her onto her bed, the one she had just been on with Lucas.  
Lucas. Who didn’t hit her or make her cry or dig his fingers into her skin that it hurt for a week. Lucas who was kind. Lucas who she loved.

Billy pulls her pants off of her and rips her shirt over her head, she lays there helplessly as he does it and let’s her body fling around like a rag doll.  
The only thing she can do is cry while he taunts her and hurts her.  
She swallows hard as he pushes her bra over her breasts to expose her budding nipples.

She groans as he pinches her right nipple between his thumb and forefinger.

“Not man enough, huh?” He growls. “I’ll show you man enough.”

Sometimes, Max said things she didn’t mean. Sometimes she heard other people say things that hurt, like the things her Mom used to say to her Dad before they got divorced, and she thought she could say them too.  
But she didn’t know that sometimes even adults have consequences to deal with for their actions too.  
She didn’t know where the fight came from, but it burst out of her and she swung a fist at Billy but it hit his shoulder and he laughed.

“You wanna hit me?” He taunts. “Maybe I wanna hit you.” And he does, he hits her so hard her ears ring and her jaw aches and her fight leaves her body.  
She just lays there, while Billy fucks her, he says he’s gonna fuck sense into her, but she knows it’s not true.  
He’s doing this because it’s what Billy does, he destroys things and she hadn’t realised it until now. But Max was his favourite thing to destroy.

*****

  
It had been 3 weeks after Billy caught Lucas in Max’s room and the days and nights seemed to melt into one big blob of shit.  
A cycle of fuckery, as Max often thought it as.  
During the day, she would find different ways to get to school so she wouldn’t need to go with Billy, or find ways to get out of going to school when Billy had fucked her so hard she couldn’t walk.  
During the nights, she found excuses so as to keep Billy out of her room and on the weekends she bounced from house to house of her friends in order to keep away from her older brother.  
This particular Friday night however, she was stuck. Dustin was sick with tonsillitis, Lucas and his family were at a dinner for Erika’s birthday, Mike and El were together and the Wheeler’s were away for the weekend.

So, in few words, Max was fucked.

She figured if she was going to be here all weekend, she could at least work on her science project for school, the last thing she wanted was to fuck up in school. Neil told her that if her grades dropped, she’d really know about it.  
She made her way into the kitchen to grab some things for her diorama and noticed the letter on the table, it was from her Mom and it stated that they had gone away for the weekend. She’d gotten used to goodbye letters because her Mom was always uncomfortable saying goodbye in person, so she often wrote it down.  
Max used to love when her Mom and Step Dad would go away because it meant she had more free time to spend with her friends without having to worry about being home at certain times or making sure to keep herself out of trouble; but now she hated it.  
When their parents were gone, it gave Billy more incentive and opportunity to do those bad things to her.

Her Mom never used to travel, but she’d heard from her Grandma that she’d gotten a really nice settlement in the divorce and so did Billy’s dad, Neil. So they took every opportunity to get away.  
Neil said it was because they annoyed him and her Mom but her Mom said she never had the chance to travel or take nice trips when she was younger, so she wanted to do it now.

Tonight especially was a particularly bad night. Billy had been beaten by their step dad the night before and was still angry about the incident with Lucas; and when Billy had been beaten, he often took his anger and pain out on Max, it was even worse for her if she’d disobeyed him. Billy liked to call it the circle of life; but Max called it what it was. Abuse.  
They were both sitting in the lounge room; Billy was watching the television smoking a cigarette while Max finished building her diorama for one of her classes. Max could feel when Billy stopped watching the TV and watched her instead.  
She didn’t dare look up though, she just sat quietly working on her school project.

“Max.” Billy says, butting out his cigarette in the ash tray.

Max still doesn’t look up but answers him anyway. “Yeah?”

“Make me a sandwich.”

She gets up immediately, she learned quickly enough not to disobey Billy and to always do what he asked after that particular afternoon with Lucas. She scurried into the kitchen and opened the bread box, a plate and opened the fridge to get out butter, ham, cheese, and dill pickles. Billy had followed her into the kitchen and sat next to the plate on the breakfast bar while Max spread butter over the bread.  
She was working on controlling her breathing, ever since the first day Billy had begun doing things to her, she was always nervous.  
She spread the butter evenly and reached for the ham to put on the sandwich as well; then the cheese, before finally cutting a dill pickle in half and placing it on the sandwich. She put the second slice of bread on the top and moved to put the knife in the sink.

She was pulled back and hit the ground when Billy grabbed her hair.

“Are you fucking stupid?” He yells, sliding off of the breakfast bar next to Max’s head. He picks up the sandwich and looks at, shaking it in her face. “Is this how you make a fucking sandwich? Are you stupid?” He throws it at her and it hits her face. “You fucking cut it!”

“Billy I’m sorry.” She whimpers. “I’ll make it again.”

He back hands her, hard across the face and she instinctively moves her arms to cover her head while he lays punches to her torso.

“How are you so retarded you can’t even make a sandwich?” He roars.

She looks at him between a space in her arm and that only makes him angrier. “Don’t fucking look at me like that! You disrespectful bitch!” He’s really laying into her, thuds and whacks resonate throughout the empty house as Billy continues his onslaught of slaps and punches to his little sister. “Idiot! Idiot! How do you not know to make a simple thing!”  
He stops hitting her and stands over her, fixing his hair.  
“Ladies and gentlemen.” He spits. “My retard sister, Maxine, the girl who doesn’t know how to properly make a sandwich.”

He breathes in and out harshly trying to catch his breath. He bends down again, so his knees are planted firmly on either side of her and pushes her onto her back so she’s not twisted the way she was. She cries out in pain as she’s moved but he covers her mouth with his hand.

“Max.” He coos, pulling her down so her legs are over his thighs. “I only do these things so you can learn better.” He pulls her pants off with her knickers and moves to undo his belt but he’s stopped when Max whimpers.

“Billy, don’t. Please, I’m really sore. Please.” She begs. She knows she messed up again when he shoots her his signature look and she catches her breath when his hand wraps tightly around her throat. He begins to smash her head into the ground so that she’s too dizzy to move or comprehend things so she just lies there, making tiny moans of pain.

He undoes his belt and his jeans and frees himself, he’s already hard. He spits on his fingers and rubs them on Max’s hole before shoving harshly into her. She bites the back of her hand to stop from crying out as he thrusts into her.  
The pain is unbearable and it takes so much effort for Max to not scream.

“No matter how many times I fuck you, you’re always so tight.” He grunts, he keeps fucking her even while she cries. She clutches his shirt in her fist and breathes in sharply.

“Billy.” She whimpers. “Billy it’s hurting.”

He doesn’t stop though, he’d never stop. Billy enjoyed the things he did to Max, because in a way, her pain made his seep away into nothing. He keeps pounding into her before he feels the tug in his hips and he releases his seed into her, making sure that every last drop fills her womb.  
He couldn’t care less if he knocked her up because he could always tell their parents that she was whoring herself out to that nigger Sinclair and they’d believe him.

He pulls out of her and fixes his pants, picking himself up off the ground he looks down at her.  
“Clean yourself up Max.” He says. “You’re a fucking mess.”

*****

The shower water burns as she tries to wash her private area, she hisses while she watches the shower water turn red and take the water and blood down the drain with it.  
No matter what she did, it always angered Billy and she used to be able to stand up for herself, but she knew now that no matter what she did, he’d always do something to take it out on her.

She turns the handles on the shower slowly and steps out, winter was slowly seeping away and Summer was creeping in which meant 2 things for Max Mayfield.

_1\. No school._   
_2\. No parents._

Both her Mom and Step Dad often disappeared on luxurious, no kids allowed, trips across America during the Summer and left her and Billy to their own vices with $400 cash to get the through the 2 months they’d be gone.  
2 months alone with Billy.  
60 days with no parents to stop him from creeping down the hall into her bedroom at night.  
1440 hours of pure, unimaginable chaos.

Max had never dreaded Summer vacation so much before in her life.

She looks in the small bathroom mirror at her reflection, she could see parts of Max, but she didn’t truly feel like herself anymore. Each time Billy did something to her, hurt her in some way, she lost parts of herself and she had no real way of being able to get them back.  
Even though it had been a month since Billy first attacked her, she could already notice the changes in herself.  
She’d lost weight, due to the fact that she couldn’t bring herself to eat. She wasn’t sickly thin, but she had dropped some of the fat she had and her mother attributed it to Max finally losing her puppy dog weight.

Her under eyes were dark, she’d had trouble sleeping; the slightest noise would wake her up. She rubs her face and inhaled deeply, Max used to like herself, but it was hard to look at yourself and enjoy what you saw when you knew that your body was filled with grime due to the taboo acts you were forced to partake in.

She pulls open the bathroom drawer and looks through it, moving the sanitary pads and loose miscellaneous items out of the way before finding the scissors. She looked in the mirror one more time before tying both sections of her hair into pony tails.  
She hesitates for a single moment before cutting.

She knew that Billy would stop doing things to her neck if she had no hair there, so she cut it just below her chin. When her hair fell at her feet, she felt different, like she’d lost a weight on her chest because it meant Billy lost something too.

She swept the hair off the floor and into the bin, switched the bathroom light off and crawled into bed where she covered her mouth while she cried herself to sleep.


	3. Mean

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I like it when it hurts like hell  
> There's nothing you can do to me  
> I wouldn't do to myself  
> I'll be bound to you in leather & chains  
> I'll be your sister your young bride

Max was in her bedroom when she heard Billy come home, fear rose in her as she heard him stumble through the house calling out her name.

“Max!” He called to her and she spun out into the hallway just in time to see Billy hit the floor of the landing.  
She moved to help him up and to get him back on his feet. He smelled like a brewery, the stench of beer irritated her nose as she helped him into his room.

He stopped to look at her, and he smiled. “Maxxy, Maxxy, Maxxy!” He grinned. “I came home from the party because I was thinking of you.”

“You smell like a beer factory, Billy.” She says, helping to get him into his bed, she’d seen Billy drunk before, but she’d never seen him like this.  
He was so intoxicated it seemed like it took him extra effort just to look at her.  
He reaches his hand up and touches her hair, studying it for a moment.

“Why did you cut your hair?” He asks, looking at her. “Did... did I make you cut it?”

She doesn’t answer, she just swallows and looks away. Max didn’t really like talking about things like this, they made her uncomfortable.

“I always liked your hair.” He says softly. “It was nice.” He huffs and reaches for his cigarettes. “You know, Tommy’s whore Carol thinks she’s got nice hair but she doesn’t. It’s all fucked up and weird lookin’”  
He lights his cigarette and takes a deep inhale, rubbing his eyes with the ball of his hand. “Max?”

“Yes Billy?” She asks softly.

“Do you hate me?” His voice sounds faraway like he’s lost and she doesn’t answer him. “I know you do, you don’t have to lie.”

He ashes his cigarette in the ashtray and sniffs, Max watches a solitary tear fall off his face and onto his jeans as he inhales again. “I don’t mean to hurt you Max, I love you, I really do. It’s just, sometimes you make me so angry.” He looks at her and she finally sees the pain in his eyes. “But I don’t mean to hurt you, I don’t.”

She doesn’t move from where she is, “My Dad used to tell me he loved me but I know he doesn’t. And I know you don’t either, and neither does your Mom, but sometimes I’m hurting inside Max and I just want someone else to feel how I do.”

She’d never seen Billy like this before, open and raw and it scared her more than he did when he was violent with her. She slowly sinks to the floor and brings her knees to her chest as she listens to the way Billy cries.

“I love you Max, and I just want to protect you and I want to make sure your safe but sometimes you do dumb shit, and I just can’t help it.” He wipes the snot from his nose with the back of his hand and looks at her, with red rimmed eyes. “Please don’t leave me.” His voice breaks on the last words.

She never knew until now the kind of pain her brother was in, or the way he truly felt. She always just thought that he hated her and that he was punishing her for the things his Dad did to him. She never thought that maybe he was trying to teach her something, trying to make sure she was good.

“Max.” His voice is well and truly cracking. “Max if you leave me, I swear to god I’ll die.”

Her breath catches in her throat and she stands up, he stretches his arms out to her and she moves without thinking, she’s in front of Billy and he wraps his arms around her waist and cries into her stomach while her hands encircle his head. “Don’t cry Billy.” Is all she can say, because she doesn’t know what else she can say.  
In this moment, she didn’t know who she was; whether she was Max Mayfield or just Billy’s plaything, but something in her pulled her to console her step brother.  
No matter what he did to her, he was still her brother and he was still suffering too and sometimes even the worst people needed to be comforted.

“Please don’t leave me Max.” He’s still sobbing and she knows it’s only because he’s drunk and he probably wouldn’t even remember this in the morning.

“Billy I’m not going anywhere.” She whispers. She takes the cigarette from him and ashes it in the tray by his bed and asks him if they can go to bed.

“Stay with me?” He sniffles, drunkenly patting the side of his bed. She hovers for a moment before obeying and climbs in next to him. Billy manages to stand up and pull his shirt off and tug his tight jeans off so that he’s just standing there in his boxers and climbs back into the bed next to her.  
They’re facing each other and Billy reaches out and touches her cheek and she momentarily flinches and watches Billy’s face contort in uncomfortable pain. “I’m sorry you’re scared of me, Max.” He whispers.

His fingers stretch so that his palm is on her cheek and he pulls her into him, she’s scared to pull back and let’s him tug at her. Their lips meet and he’s softer this time, kissing her slowly and sweetly. He pulls back and puts his head on his pillow.  
“Please be here when I wake up, Max.” He mumbles.

She rolls away from him so her back is to him but he doesn’t seem to mind, he just grabs her and pulls her closer to him so that her back is pressed against his stomach. He’s really warm, even though he’s half naked, and he buries his head into her neck and in a few moments; he’s asleep.

Max lies there for a moment staring at the blank paint of Billy’s wall and wonders what the fuck had just happened. She couldn’t think properly but something inside of her was screaming _‘I knew it!’_. Billy wasn’t permanently fucked, he was just hurting and Max knew that if she could stop that hurting, maybe she could save Billy.

*****

She groans as she rolls over and stretches out, rather than feeling Billy sleeping there next to her, she feels cold sheets and pushes herself up into a half sitting position. She was alone in his room and his clothes were gone, she crawls out his bed and walks into the kitchen. No Billy either, only a few dollar bills on the table and a note.

_Get some breakfast shit head. And don’t go to the fucking arcade either, I’ll know if you do._

She stares at the note for a moment before grabbing the money off the counter and heading into her room to get changed before leaving to head out.  
She skated towards the local diner to have some pancakes for breakfast and rolled passed the houses and trees on their street.  
Skating had become easier since she cut her hair, she didn’t need to worry so much about the hair blowing all around her face while she tried to concentrate.

On her way to the diner she skated passed Dustin’s house and knocked on the front door. His mom answered and welcomes Max with a smile.

“Good morning Maxine.” She greeted, “Are you looking for Dustin?”

“Is he in?” She asks. “Is he feeling any better Mrs Henderson?” She adds.

His mother nods and stands back so Max can walk in, “he’s feeling much better. His tonsillitis cleared up a few days ago. Where are you headed this early on a Saturday?”

“To the diner.” She follows Dustin’s Mom to his room and waits while she knocks on the door.

“Come in.” Dustin answers and his Mom opens the door.

“Good morning Dusty, Maxine is here.” She leaves the two alone and Max walks in and sits with Dustin on the floor while he flips through a comic book.

“What’s up?” He asks.

She fishes into her pocket and shows him the couple of dollars Billy had left her. “Wanna get some pancakes?”

*****

Even though summer had just started, the days had started to get really hot, so being in the diner with Dustin felt nice and refreshing.  
They’re sitting across from each other eating the pancakes Max paid for and she reaches into her pocket and produces a folded piece of paper. Sliding it across the table, Dustin takes it and puts it into his pocket.  
He then returns a different paper to Max who then puts it into her pocket.

“Did he say anything?” She asks, making sure the paper was secure in her pocket.

“Just that he missed you and doesn’t wanna be away from you anymore. Pretty gross stuff.” He takes a bite of his pancake and keeps talking with his mouth full. “When’s your brother gonna let you see him again?”

Max’s shrugs, “I don’t really know. He was pretty angry when he found Lucas in my room and he hasn’t really gotten over it. So it’s a total Sinclair ban.”

“Do you think letters are really gonna suffice?” Dustin questions. “I mean, I’m okay to be your messenger boy, but don’t you think your relationship is gonna suck if you don’t get to see each other?”

Max doesn’t reply, she’s silent as she eats her pancakes.  
It had only been a week since Billy’s massive temper tantrum but he’d sworn to her that there was no more Lucas, if she so much as thought of him, she knew she’d cop it. Ever since then, they’d been finding secret ways to interact with one another.

Dustin was a perfect example, the letters were Max’s idea. She would write a letter to Lucas, give it to Dustin who would then deliver it to her boyfriend and vice versa.   
Billy wouldn’t even catch on because he knew that despite Max and Dustin being friends, he knew they never really hung out much. Even though they had this plan in place, Max started to feel closer to Dustin and she never knew how good at giving advice he was. Or even how funny he was.

They both finish their breakfast and she leaves the money on the table before they both head outside. Dustin had bought his bike but they both decided to walk back to his house before Max went back to her own.  
As they walked, Dustin sitting and walking his bike, and Max keeping pace while she held her skateboard.

“How come you’ve been missing so much school?” He questions. “You’ve missed like, 2 whole weeks in 2 months.”

She shrugs and tells a lie. “Just been sick I guess. I mean, it’s my first summer in Hawkins and they’re a bit cooler than in California so I think I’m just adjusting to the difference” Max knew Dustin wouldn’t believe her, he was smart enough not to, but the thing about Dustin was he knew when to take a hint and never to pry.

“Must be why you cut your hair.” He adds.

“Yeah.”

They continue to walk side by side chatting away about mundane things that Max used to think were the be all and end all of her world; but now it was just mush in the black pool of everything she had to deal with.

“When is your next D&D campaign?” She pushes one of the wheels on her skateboard.

“Next Tuesday.” He answers, looking at her. “Wanna come?”

“Sure.” Max had never played D&D before, but she felt like a fantasy role playing game might be what she needed to escape her real life for the spare minute. “I’ll meet you at Mike’s?”

“Sure. El’s even gonna be there too.”

“Cool.”

*****

When she got home, she read Lucas’ letter and wiped her face from her tears and when she’d re read it three times she folded it back up and stuffed it into a hiding spot and went out into the lounge room, flicking the TV on. Cartoons usually played around this time so she figured she’d be able to kill time.

She didn’t know when she fell asleep but when she was woken up by the sound of banging and drawers being pulled open she looked at the wall clock and noticed she’d been out for almost three hours. She sits up and looks out of the lounge room window and sees Billy’s car in the driveway.  
She walks towards his room but notices the noises are coming from _her_ room. She walks in and sees her brother standing by her window where her dresser is.  
Billy was in her bedroom and for a split second she’s confused why, but then she sees the paper in his hand.

“Billy?” She questions, slowly edging further into her room. She dared not shut the door.

He looks up at her, lifting the paper slightly. “What is this?” His voice is deathly calm.  
Her eyes dart from the paper and back to Billy quickly.  
“I don’t know.” She lies.

He raises his eyebrows in faux shock. “Oh, you don’t know?” He looks at the paper again and his jaw clenches before he smiles. “That’s okay Max, it must’ve been my mistake.” He stares at her. “Or maybe you can’t remember. Let me see if I can jog your memory.”

She knew exactly what it was, it was the letter from Lucas that Dustin had given her that morning in the diner. She shouldn’t have been so stupid and hid it in her underwear drawer.

“Here, I’ll even read you my favourite part.”

“Billy.” She tries.

He ignores her and reads anyway. “Max.” He spits her name. “Don’t be scared, one day we’ll have enough money that we can leave Hawkins together. You and me, we’ll go far away.” Lucas’ words sounded so foreign coming from Billy’s mouth.  
He keeps reading and Max’s eyes well with tears. “That way, you won’t ever have to be around your psycho brother again, and maybe then, we can be together.”  
He stops and makes a show of ripping up the letter.

“You’re gonna leave me?” He moves close to her, he’s almost towering over her as she cowers into herself. 

“No, I’m. Billy that letter-“  
“Don’t even think about lying to me.”  
“I told you, I wouldn’t leave!”

He throws the paper at her and it rains around her like confetti. “Then what about this!”

She starts to freak out internally, panicking. He starts to pull clothes out of her drawers, looking for something. “Where’s your letter?”

“My what?” She questions.

He spins around and grabs her face between his hand. “Where the fuck is the letter you sent him!”

She’s quiet when she answers him. “He has it.”  
This sends him over the edge and he shoves her so hard she hits the ground. He spins around and grabs her skateboard and pulls it hard against his knee, snapping it clean in half.

“No!” She shrieks. She tries to grab the pieces but he kicks her out of the way and tosses them both out the window and onto the lawn.

“Stop crying Max, I’ve told you so many times. Look at me.” She looks at him and there’s pure hot hatred in her eyes. “Tell me what happens when you disobey me.”

“You break things.”

“Good girl.” He squats in front of her and grabs her face again, softly this time. “Now, tell me why I do these things to you.”

She sniffs back her tears and looks him dead in the eyes. “Because you’re a coward.”  
The backhand is instant.

“Wrong answer.”

She doesn’t stop though, she says it again. “You’re just scared!” She starts to lash out now, hardly being able to control what she’s saying. Her anger has her on her feet and in his face. “You’re scared because you know that Lucas and I are in love and we’re gonna run away and we’re gonna leave you behind!”

The crack of the slap that hits Max’s face has her reeling and she cries out. “Love?” He scoffs. “You’ve got no idea what that even is!” He grabs her hair and pulls it back so she looks at him again. “You’re living in a fantasy world, little sister.” She shoves him with her free hands so he let’s go of her hair.

“This!” She shouts. “This isn’t love!” She stands back and hits Billy’s hand away when he tries to reach for her. “Lucas loves me! He’s kind! He doesn’t want to hurt me or push me around or make me cry. And I love him too! And you must hate that!” She’s never been this way before; sure she’d taken Steve’s nail bat to Billy’s balls but this was different.  
This was a more carnal and emotional anger. This wasn’t Max standing up for herself or protecting her friends; this was a girl sick of the abuse at the hands of someone who was supposed to love her. Who was supposed to be family. “You hate it because I won’t give it to you! You take it! But I give it to Lucas and I love every fucking minute of it!”

Billy takes a step forward and grabs Max by her forearms, he’s close to her face when he whispers, “when our parents get home, you are well and truly done.” He turns to leave but Max isn’t finished yet.

“Good! Do it, because then I can tell them what you’ve been doing to me and they’ll believe me because even our parents know you’re a fucking monster!” She’s done it now. When he turns back around he grabs her by the throat and slams her into her bedroom wall.

“You think you can talk to me like that you stupid cunt?” He pushes her harder. “Do you really think I’d let you say this shit to me?”

She puts her hands around his wrist and doesn’t take her eyes off him. “Do it Billy, murder me.” She’s not going to waiver this time, she’s not scared.

He doesn’t though, he’s smarter than that, he just takes his hand away but grabs her wrist instead and drags her with him out of her room and into the garage, before pushing her so hard she trips and hits the concrete. “You need to be sorted out.” He closes and locks the door behind him and goes over to the work bench and grabs black masking tape before coming back to Max. “Strip.” He orders.

At first she doesn’t move, but after he kicks her in the leg, and threatens her through his teeth “if you don’t fucking do it, I’ll drive out and get that nigger boyfriend of yours and slash his throat myself.”  
The threat enough is to make her oblige and she does as she’s told. She stands up stiffly and pulls her shirt over her head and takes her bra off before stepping out of her short shorts and tugging her undies off as well.  
She’s standing stark naked in front of Billy who examines her slowly.  
“Put your hands on your shoulders like this.” He motions so his fingers touch his shoulders inwards towards his toes and she follows suit. He then tapes them so they don’t move; they’re tight and Max already feels uncomfortable but before she has time to complain, he places a small strip of tape over her mouth.

He rubs his eyes and points towards the door. “Go sit over there, knees up so they’re pointing to the roof with your legs spread.” She does as she’s told and gets into the position he wants. He then tapes her legs the same way he did her arms and then he leaves.

He’s only gone a few minutes but it feels like hours and Max’s joints are beginning to ache. She huffs against the tape over mouth and watches the door, waiting for Billy to come back. When the garage door opens, Billy is carrying a ball of twine and and the peg basket.  
He places both down in front of Max and begins to work slowly.

“You know.” He begins. “I found this magazine when I was a kid, it was behind the school library in California. It was full of all these sluts in weird positions with rope and shit. I was 14 at the time but even then, all I could think about was doing that to some chick I had and how fun it would be.” He takes one peg and clips it to the top of Max’s bikini line; he then ties a piece of twine around it.  
“And now I have you.”

He then clips another peg to her skin, an inch above the other and toes twine around it as well; he repeats the method until Max is twitching and covered in 18 pegs that run parallel up her abdomen stoping just short of her breasts. He even placed two pegs on her nipples.  
She’s breathing heavily, huffing against the tape gag trying to adjust to the pain of having the pegs clipped to her sensitive skin.

“They call this a zipper.” Billy explains. “See the twine on each of the pegs, they’re there for a reason.” He grabs a pair of scissors and cuts the twine so he has two piece of twine in each hand, the right hand controlling the pegs on the right side of her body as the left hand controls the left side. “I try and do this shit with the girls at school but they just freak out” he yawns, almost as if he’s bored. “Dumb whores. ‘No Billy, don’t do that it’s scary.’” He mocks them with a child like high pitched voice and laughs at himself. “I don’t think you’re like that though Max, I reckon you like this stuff.”

He watches her for a moment, her face is flush red and there’s beads of sweat populating on her forehead. She’s uncomfortable and it only makes his dick hard. “So, wanna know why they call it a zipper?” He doesn’t let her answer before he pulls the twine up roughly, each peg is immediately ripped off of her body and an audible sound erupts through the garage and Max screams through her gag, hitting the automatic door as the skin of her body is pinched and released with each peg that flies off.

“Woo!” Billy roars in excitement. “Now that’s why they call it a zipper! Ha!”

He can see little circles of red on her skin from where the pegs were pulled off, Max has slipped onto her side on the garage and she cries while she tries to comprehend and come down from the pain her body is in because of the pegs. He moves over to her and pushes her up so she’s sitting again and pulls her gag off. “How was that?” He questions.

“I hate you.” She sobs. “I hate you.”

“Oop. Still some fight left, can’t have that now can we.” He pinches her cheek softly before unbuckling his belt and popping his jeans. After hearing her scream, he was immediately rock hard.  
He grabs Max’s chin and squeezes it slightly so she opens her mouth.

“No teeth or I’ll beat the brains out of your skull shit bird.” He warns.

She opens her mouth further and he pushes into her; only a few inches at first and let’s her tongue dart over the head of his dick. She’d only ever given him one blowjob but she was still shit at.  
“Gee you’re retarded.” He taunts. “Suck and lick.” He instructs. “Like an ice cream Max. It’s not that hard.” He then laughs. “Well, I am, but cock sucking isn’t.”

She does as he instructs but he’s audibly frustrated and decides to go the whole nine yards and grabs the back of her head and pushes his cock as far down her throat as she can and then pulls out.  
She gags and coughs, spluttering spit onto the cement but Billy doesn’t give her enough time to recover before he’s in her mouth again. He then begins to slowly face fuck her and she does her best to accomodate him.  
The only issue was that Max’s mouth and throat were small and Billy was so large.

 _Suck and lick. Suck and lick_. She repeated the mantra in her head as best she could while actually trying to perform it in practice because she thought that if she did this for Billy, then maybe he’d leave her alone.

He physically shudders and keeps thrusting into her mouth, “good girl Max. That’s it. Gee, what if your Mom knew you were a slut for my cock, huh?”  
He then shoved himself down her throat again and holds her there this time, knowing full well she wouldn’t be able to ward him off considering she was taped up. Every time her throat gags and squeezes his cock, he’s immediately shot into ecstasy and when he’s on the cusp of coming, he pulls out and let’s her fall against the door again and watches as she cries.

He then pumps himself in quick succession before coming streams of white onto her face. She tries to move away but he holds her head in place and when he’s finished he sighs deeply and fixes his pants up.  
He then walks over and gets a box cutter and cuts the tape away from her arms and legs. “Max, you know why I’m doing this.”

He puts the box cutter away and walks back over to her, lifting her chin with his finger. “You do know, don’t you?”  
Her chin quivers, she tries to hide it, but it wobbles and more tears well in her eyes.  
“Now, while my cum dries on your face; think about how all of this could have been avoided.” He brushes some hair behind her ear while she cries. “All you had to do was be nice to me. Now, tell me, whose fault is it your skateboard is broken in the yard?”

She’s crying hard now, but she still answers him. “Mine.” She whispers.

“That’s a good girl.” He plants a kiss to the top of her head and scoops her up in his arms, leading her into the kitchen. He places her on the kitchen bench and grabs a wash cloth from under the sink and wets it. He then begins to slowly wipe away his come from her face in gentle circular motions.

“When I was little, my Mom once told me that sometimes, we do things to the people we love because we think it’s the best thing for them.”

Max is quiet, Billy had never spoken about his Mom before and she was perplexed by the way he could go from irate rage to gentleness.

“And that’s why I do this to you. Sometimes you make me so mad that I just try and make you better. So you get better. Do you understand?”

She nods softly. When he’s finished cleaning her up, he disposes of the cloth in the bin and leans against the bench across from her. He watches her slowly.

“If you behave, I might think about buying you a new skateboard.” And with that, he leaves her alone in the kitchen.

She doesn’t cry, she just sits there alone in silence thinking about the fact she had to spend the rest of the summer alone with Billy and she couldn’t help but wonder if she’d actually come out of it alive.


	4. Lacrymaria Olor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> he's gonna strap her to the bed, spread apart her legs  
> and pull the soul out of the body that its in  
> and when he's done he will give her to the earth  
> a starving animal will always feed  
> god as his witness he'll smile  
> as he watches her bones slide between its teeth

Max watched a tv special once about the American prison system; Billy had watched it too and she thinks that’s where he got the idea from.

After yesterday’s affairs, the entire house was on lockdown. If Max so much as breathed the wrong way, Billy knew about it. 

He had created a strict set of rules that she had to live by for the rest of the Summer.

“ _You better live by this more than a Christian does the bible._ ” He had told her while he made the point of nailing the rules on her bedroom wall; that way she could see them every minute she was in her room. 

_ MAXINE MAYFIELD’s RULES  _

_ CERTIFIED BY BILLY HARGROVE. _

_ RULE 1: Do not go anywhere without me.  _

_ RULE 2: No decisions will be made without my consideration and approval.  _

_ RULE 3: All clothes will be decided by me before leaving the house.  _

_ RULE 4: Do not be seen without me.  _

_ RULE 5: Dinner will be cooked and ready to be served by 7:30pm  _

_ RULE 6: No going out without me.  _

_ RULE 7: Do not sleep in your own bed unless instructed otherwise.  _

_ RULE 8: Punishments will be handed out for disobedience or bad behaviour.  _

_ RULE 9: You are to sit at my feet when I am sitting down.  _

_ RULE 10: You are not to speak unless spoken to.  _

_ RULE 11: No smart mouth behaviour.  _

_ RULE 12: When I call you into my room, you will be on your knees waiting for me.  _

She had pretty much had them all memorised, under Billy’s clear instruction, it was just the last rule that really bothered her. 

_ RULE 13: NO. LUCAS. SINCLAIR.  _

Billy had made sure to underline this particular rule with a red marker. 

Along with the rules, everything else had been shipped off to fucked up harbour. 

She was only allowed to sleep in her own bed when Billy felt annoyed by her presence, he had also instructed that showering only be done with him. 

She felt like his shadow, anything he did, she was always in tow.

It was almost a surreal dream; she had pinched herself numerous times through the day hoping to God she’d wake up.

She’s sitting on the floor cross legged by Billy’s feet while he sits in Neil’s favourite chair. He really knew how to make her feel like an animal. 

They have the tv on but they aren’t watching it. 

Billy is smoking a cigarette and drinking a beer and Max is trying to keep her senses focused on Billy.

“See, it’s not so hard being a good girl.” He reaches out and runs a finger down her neck. “Make sure you’re ready by 9am tomorrow shit bird, you’re coming to work with me.”

Max internally groaned, she’d have to spend an entire day at work with Billy. She hears him crush his empty beer can and he nudges her with his foot. 

“Go to bed Max, it’s late.”

“It’s only 8:30.” She softly protests. 

He’s silent for a few seconds and she’s worried she’s made him mad.

“1 more hour.” He says cracking another beer. 

“Thank you.” She says loudly, leaning back against his leg, her head resting on his knee. 

He places his hand on her head, fingers stretching in her hair. 

“Little puppy.” Her murmurs but Max pretends she doesn’t hear it. 

***** 

Max was awake well before Billy and his alarm but she still waited until it’s shrill wail stirred her brother from his sleep; she was too scared to move while he was unconscious and only waited until his eyes opened before she untangled herself from him. 

“Morning.” He yawns. She could feel his morning wood against her small thigh, while he snaked his hand up her night shirt and grabbed her breast. He kneaded it with his knuckles and rolled her nipple between his thumb and forefinger. 

He laid soft kisses on her neck and slid his hand out out from under her shirt where it took a new place in her pants and began working on her clit. 

Max stares at the roof of his bedroom while he touches her; her vision only obscured when Billy takes his place on top of her; pulling at the draw string of her pants and peeling them off, rolling her shirt up to expose her entire torso.

She watches him carefully as he slips his thumbs under the draw string of his boxers and pushes them down. He then pushes her knees apart, spitting on his fingers and wetting her cunt before pushing into her. 

She moans in discomfort as he fills her; every time Billy stuck his prick in her, she felt stuffed.

Even though he had been fucking her every night for almost two months, he still couldn’t slip into her with ease; it was always so much effort on his part.

“I feel like your little cunt is moulding into the shape of my dick, Max.” He moans against her ear, thrusting into her slowly. “Fuck.” 

He plants kisses on her neck, and nicks her collarbone with his teeth.

He was still annoyed the little bitch had cut her hair, but that still didn’t stop him from marking her with hickeys. 

He moves his hand from her side and slips it under her arse, pulling one of her legs up so he can try and get deeper; _if he could get deeper_. 

He keeps driving into her until he reaches his peak and spills inside her, “remind me.” He pants, “to pick you up some birth control from the pharmacy.”

She watches him as he crawls out of bed and rummages through his drawers for his work uniform. 

He gets dressed in front of her, he didn’t care what she saw; hell, it was only a few seconds prior he had his cock buried deep in her. 

“Here.” He throws her one of his old band t-shirts; it was big enough that she could wear it as a cover shirt over her swimmers.

“Uhm.” She begins. “I was thinking that maybe I could go to the library today.” 

His lighter clicks as he sparks a cigarette. He takes a long drag and puts his lighter in his pocket. “Don’t think, Max, it doesn’t suit you.” He exhales before retreating to the kitchen.

Max trudges into her own room and puts her swimmers on, the feeling of Billy’s come started to pool out of her was uncomfortable, but she knew they didn’t have time for a shower so she had to just deal with it; she goes about pulling Billy’s shirt over her head. It smelt like him and it made her stomach churn. 

She grabs her bag and fills it with a book and a towel before heading into the kitchen. Billy is taking the sandwiches he had her make the night before and hands them to her, she immediately puts them in her bag and zips it up.

“How domestic.” He taunts, she looks at him for a moment before averting her gaze. He pushes past her and heads outside with his little sister scurrying behind him. 

***** 

Max did have to admit, she was kinda grateful that Billy let her sit next to his lifeguard stand under the shade because it was unbelievably hot today. 

She’s sitting in her towel so she isn’t directly on the cement. She thinks about how she would have to do this everyday with Billy until he had calmed down enough to not make her go with him everywhere. 

Billy had been cross with her so many times before, but he had never actually taken her life and flipped it completely upside down in one massive swoop like he was currently doing. With Neil and Susan on a child free vacation, Billy was in complete charge.

Max watches the kids walking in fast pace around the pool; their mothers laying on the public sun chairs watching her brother. She knew that he would be enjoying the attention too. 

Cold water drops down onto her head and she looks up to see Billy looking down at her, water bottle in hand, he had been slowly pouring it on her to get her attention. 

“Give me a sandwich.” He orders, she rummages through her bag and grabs him a sandwhich, having to stand on tip toes just to give it to him. 

He takes it from her and unwraps it, Max remembered to cut it this time, thinking back on the night Billy had flipped shit because of the uncut bread.

She hears him sigh impatiently and looks at him in time to see the sandwhich falling down to her, she catches it and Billy lowers his sunglasses so he can stare at her. “That sandwich is warm, Max.”

“I’m sorry Billy, it’s just really hot today and-“ she stammers.

“I don’t care.” He sounds bored, leaning back into his chair. “Just get me something from the food stall.” He motions towards her bag. “My wallet is in there, get something for you as well.” 

She grabs it and walks towards the food stall, holding Billy’s wallet close. She had never been a timid girl, but ever since the day Billy had taken her in her room by force, anxiety had begun to bloom in her like flowers in spring.

She reaches the food stall and the old woman behind the window offers her a warm smile. “What do you need sweet girl?”

“Uhm, one corn dog and some large fries please.” Max instructs. “And two soda’s as well.”

The woman nods and sets about getting the young girls order ready. Max waits patiently, her back to Billy. Even though she’s not looking at him, she knows he’s looking at her. She keeps her focus on the stall owner making Billy’s food and just silently pleads that he won’t be mad by her choice. 

When the owner comes back with Max’s order, Max hands her the money and collects the food and change and turns to head back to Billy when her heart immediately soars into her throat.

Walking through the entrance of the public pool was Mike, El, Dustin, Will, and Lucas. They all had bags and towels and were obviously going to be staying at the pool for a while. Her eyes fell on Billy who hadn’t noticed them walk in yet, too fixated on the kids in the actual pool area. 

She was hoping she could make it over to Billy without and incident, and begins to walk quickly, refusing to look over at the direction of the entrance and reaches Billy, handing him the soda and fries, he doesn’t say thank you and she’s not worried enough to care about his manners, she just takes her place next to him and pulls out her book and tries to distract herself by reading and eating her corndog.

Every so often her eyes would flicker to the pool and she could see her friends in a group close to the bathrooms, near the grass. After she finished her corndog and soda, the sudden urge to pee had her anxiety peaking and she looked up at Billy. 

“Can I go to the bathroom?”

“Whatever.” He responds, she’s not sure if he knew that the party was there, or if he was just pretending not to care to see what she would do.

She hurries to the bathrooms and catches from the corner of her eye, Will perking up to talk to her, she shoots him a warning glance and he quickly changes his train of thought and looks away from her. Her heart sinks when she sees the sad look on his face; other than Lucas, Will was probably one of her favourite people and someone she didn’t want to hurt. 

But sometimes, hurting people keeps them safe. 

*****

Billy’s shift ended pretty soon after that and he told Max to meet him at the car after she’d packed all of her shit up. 

She collects her things and shoves them in her bag and heads out of the front entrance to the car park where Billy rested against the Camaro, shades over his eyes. 

As she exited the pool, a hand snaked it’s way around her arm and she stopped and turned to meet the chocolate brown eyes of Lucas Sinclair.

“Max?” Lucas was soft spoken anytime he was around her. “Why did you ignore us?”

She swallows hard and pulls her arm away from his hand. “I have to go.” 

“Wait, Max, can we talk?” He asks, sounding hurt that she’d just ignored his question as well.

“Lucas stop.” She says sternly. “I have to go.” 

She turns tail and heads to the car, passing Billy on the way, who slips in to the drivers side of the car, keeping his eyes on the Sinclair boy as he pauses for a moment before heading back into the pool area.

Max keeps her eyes lowered, staring at her hands in her lap while she hears the familiar sound of Billy lighting a cigarette. She hears him exhale and then he speaks.

“Why was he talking to you?” He questions, his voice accusatory.

“It was nothing, he was just seeing if I wanted to go to some stupid dungeons and dragons thing at Mike’s house. I said no.” She says softly.

“Then why are you so upset?” He looks at her, asking his cigarette out of the window.

“I’m not.” She counters, her shaky voice gives her away.

“You know what happens when you lie to me.” He threatens.

“I’m not lying.” Her voice full of plea. “Billy can we please just go home?”

He looks at her for a few more seconds, before starting the engine of his car and peeling out the of the swimming pool car park. 

The entire drive home, all he could think about was the punishment Max had in store for her because of her blatant lie.

*****

When they get home, Billy instructs Max to go to his room, and because of the rules on her wall, she obliges and goes quickly inside. Billy locks his car and follows her in; by time time he’s inside she’s already on her knees. 

He tells her to stand up and she does, her back still to him.

“Turn around.” He says, and she does, she’s not looking at him; her eyes turned to the floor. “Remind me, what happens when you lie?”

She swallows hard, before answering. “I get punished.”

He reaches out, lifting her chin with his fingers before snaking his hand down to her throat to grab it, his other hand balling in her hair. She gasps in shock but he pushes her towards the bed and throws her down. “You think I’m stupid?”

“No, Billy!” She objects.

“Then why did you lie to me?” He questions. He grabs her so she’s on her stomach, shoving a pillow under her so her ass is in the air. She’s still in his band shirt and he tugs at her swimmer bottoms to expose her lower area. “If you lied to me and thought I’d believe it, then you must think I’m stupid.”

“Billy, please, it was a mistake.”

He doesn’t even give her the curtesy of responding, he just unbuckles his belt and pulls it out of the loops on one smooth swoop. “What’s rule number eight?”

She mumbles into the mattress, and he tells her to say it again, louder. “Punishments will be handed out for disobedience and bad behaviour.” She repeats, her voice pained as she says it.

”And number thirteen?”   
  


She’s on the verge of tears when she answers him, “No Lucas Sinclair.” 

“Exactly right, and not only are you misbehaving by having lied to me, but you also disobeyed me by talking to that boy.” Billy loops the belt so the end and buckle are in his hand. “I think spanking should suffice.” He decides. “You’re good at math, Max, tell me what eight times three is.” 

“Twenty-four.” She answers immediately.

“Okay.” He runs a hand over her smooth arse. “Twenty-four spanks with the belt it is then.”

She pushes her face into the mattress, there was no point in fighting him, either way he was gonna find someway to hurt her so it would just be easier on her end to let him get his anger out. 

She grabs at his sheets with her hands and balls the cotton in her fists.

“Count with me Max, it seems that this past month has proven me to have a bad memory.” He taunts.

She barely has time to catch her breath before he brings his belt down hard against her backside. A loud crack fills the air and Max writhes on his bed as pain shoots through her; _it hurts, oh god does it hurt_.

“One.” She chokes out. 

Billy continues, laying smack after smack against her pale skin until it’s red raw and some of the welts had started to bleed. Finally, after a few minutes that seemed to stretch into years, Billy sighed out a breath of resignation and Max’s ‘twenty-four’ was barely audible.

He puts his belt back on and leaves for the bathroom, coming back with baby oil; he kneels by her and squirts some oil into his hand before slowly, softly applying it to her arse. 

The oil smeared with her blood and it spread across her cheeks while Billy tried not to notice the rise and fall of Max’s shoulders while she cried into his mattress.

“All I want.” He begins. “Is for you to be a good girl.” He finishes applying the oil to her arse, knowing that it would help to quell the burn of the assault done by his belt. “But you can’t seem to behave, why can’t you just behave Max?” He leaves the baby oil on the bedside table and heads out into the kitchen for a beer and a cigarette.

Max continues to cry, sniffing hard as she sobs into Billy’s sheets. 

Maybe he was right, maybe all of this was happening because she was a bad kid. Maybe if only she were good, he wouldn’t do this stuff to her. Maybe if she learned to behave, she wouldn’t be beaten or raped.

The more Billy drilled into her that she was stupid and that her abuse was a direct result of her behaviour, the more Max began to slowly believe it. 

And the more Max believed it, the less she started to feel like herself.

There’s this feeling that had begun to perch itself on her chest, and each morning she would wake up and for a split second, she could breathe, but then the weight would take its place on her sternum and it felt like she was drowning even though she wasn’t under water. 

Max wondered how long it would take before her lungs finally gave out and she evaporated. 

Max wondered if she could make herself evaporate. 


	5. Curdled Milk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> like to keep me so sick  
> just to mend me a little bit  
> lips of sewage  
> you know that i've gone septic

Billy was holding her close to him, she watched the rise and fall of his chest, deep in slumber.

He looked vulnerable when he slept; when he was awake his face was permanently etched in a scowl, but when he slept he looked kind and peaceful. His brow wasn’t furrowed and he looked at ease. 

Max turns away from him and reaches a hand down between her legs, Billy had come home from a party that night and was annoyed by something or someone and he had taken it out on Max.  
She hisses as she touches her raw pussy, pulling her hand away, she sees blood on her fingers and a stray tear slips down her face. She slowly moves away from her sleeping brother and stops momentarily when he breathes deeply before rolling away from her.

She walks out of his bedroom and into the bathroom, turning on the shower faucet and waiting for the water to turn warm before stepping inside.  
The water rushed over her and she sighed in relief, it felt nice to have the water rush over her aching joints. Billy had been extra rough with her when he came home.

Max knew almost everything about Billy and she knew that Billy plus beer plus a bad mood equaled a bad time for her. 

She watches the soapy water slip down the drain and she rests her head against the shower wall. She was always so tired, she obviously knew why, but it didn’t make her any less exhausted. 

She steps out of the shower and wraps a towel around her, walking silently to her bedroom, she pulls a long sleeved sweat shirt over her head and steps into her jeans. 

She knew that because Billy didn’t have work the next day and had chosen to drink himself stupid, he would be out cold until mid afternoon. 

She looks at the rules in her bedroom, she knew that they would be pulled off before her Mom and Neil came home from their trip but before then; they would stare into her face like a dejected propaganda poster.

She ties the laces on her shoes before stepping out of the window of her bedroom, making sure to make no noise as she dropped onto the grass of the yard and walked across it. 

She headed down the street and onto the main road; Hawkins was a tiny town so she didn’t have to be so overly worried about being out late the way she would have back in California. 

As she walks, her hands wrapped around the straps of her bag, a car pulls up beside her.

“Max?” She turns and looks at the driver, it was Steve Harrington, he smiled at her and drummed along to the soft music in his car. “It’s pretty late, watchya doin’?”

“I’m going to Lucas’s.” she answers leaning towards his open window.

He waggles his eyebrows and sends her a cheeky grin, her cheeks flush and she looks towards the empty road. “Give me a lift?” She questions. 

He tilts his head, motioning for her to get in and she climbs into the passenger side withSteve. He drives a nice car and she knows it’s because Steve comes from money; but he’s not the type to shove it in peoples faces.

He drives towards the Sinclair house and asks Max what she’s been doing with herself over the summer. 

“Staying out of trouble.” She answers, re arranging her bag at her feet. 

“You? Out of trouble, surely not.” He jokes.

Ever since the year before, Steve had become something of an adopted older brother to the party and was always on hand anytime they needed him. 

You needed a lift to school? Steve would be there. Asshole brother causing you trouble? Steve would whisk you away and sneak you into a movie through the back hallway of Scoops Ahoy ice cream parlour at Starcourt Mall.

“You act like I’m a juvenile delinquent.” Max laughs, she reaches for his car radio in an effort to change the track that’s playing. 

It was like a scene from a really shitty drama film her Mom sometimes watched on VHS.

As she reached for it, he did too, at the same time the sleeve of her sweatshirt lifted and revealed a small bracelet of bruises on her thin wrist; the street light they passed under for a second gave Steve enough luminance to see them. 

Max pulled her hand back immediately and tugged her sleeve down.

“Max, what-“

“There’s Lucas’s house!” She interjects, Steve pulls up to the street and Max all but launches out of the car. “Thanks for the ride Steve! Bye!” 

She doesn’t wait for Steve’s response before she walks up towards Lucas’s house, his bedroom was on the far left of the property and she knew from past experiences that he always kept his window unlocked.

She’s surprised to see his light still on when she approaches, and she knocks softly to grab his attention. He walks over and pulls his window up. 

“Max? What are you doing here, it’s like 1am.” She asks if she can come inside and he nods, helping her climb in through his window.

“I just wanted to see you.” She replies when he asks why she had decided to see him spontaneously after having ignored him and their friends for the past week and a bit. “I’m sorry I’ve been weird lately, it’s just-“

“Billy, I know.” He scratches his head, he’s completely shirtless and he’s got pyjama bottoms on. “When are you gonna leave Max?”

“You say that like it’s an easy thing to do!” She scoffs. “We’re Freshman, Lucas. You’re acting like I can just pack up all my shit and move out into the Malibu Barbie dream house.”

“That’s not what I meant, you know that.” He says, looking at her in the way that always makes Max know she’s being unreasonable. “I just meant that you can’t always put up with him forever.”

“Lucas, I didn’t come here for a fight.” She steps closer to him, and she doesn’t even have to ask, he engulfs her in a hug and she sinks into him. 

It had been so long since she had been in the familiar space of his arms and she could almost die right then and there. “I’m so tired.” She says in total defeat. “Lucas I am just so tired.” 

He leads her to his bed and she sits down, trying so hard not to wince at the pain, it had only been a day since Billy punished her for speaking to Lucas and the bruising had started to set in and anything she sat on hurt. She could sit on a cloud and her arse still would have hurt, no doubt Billy would’ve been _proud_ with his handiwork.

He sits next to Maxine and holds her hand, “lets go to sleep then?” He offers and she nods, tears pooling her eyes. 

“Yes please.” She whispers softly.

He gets up and switches the light off, climbing in the bed next to her. Lucas’s bed was smaller than Billy’s but the two teenagers still fit, considering Max was basically entwined into Lucas’s side that she could probably be a part of his DNA. 

“When am I gonna see you again?” He whispers into her hair.

“I don’t know.” She answers simply. “This has been the first time in a while I’ve been able to really get away.” She adds honestly.

“I’m so sorry.” Is all he can say.

Max bites her lip, forcing the sadness deep inside her. “I don’t need your pity, Lucas.” She quips. “It’s lost on me.” There was so many things that were lost on her, Max knew she didn’t deserve Lucas Sinclair’s pity, not because she didn’t need it, but simply because she wasn’t good enough to deserve it. 

Only good girls got things, and Max was far from.

“What’s happening to you, Max?” Her boyfriend questions, “you never used to be like this. Even when Billy was an asshole before, you never backed down to him. You’re all soft and scared.” He plants a kiss to her forehead and Max’s breath hitches. “What’s going on?”

She doesn’t answer him, just pretends she’s sleeping hoping that he’ll stop talking which he eventually does and they both drift to sleep. 

It was the first time in a while that Max got a good nights sleep.

***** 

She creeps out of Lucas’s room before the boy wakes up, collecting her bag and heading out his window.

The sun was only just starting to rise and Max knew it was about an hour, give or take, walk from his house to her own so she had a few hours to spare before Billy woke up. 

She begins the hike up the road, hoping to make it back in time.

She kicks up stray rocks from the street as she heads back to her house; hoping that Billy hasn’t woken up yet. She knew it wasn’t possible because he’d be passed out well past noon, Billy wasn’t predictable but she did know his habits so it was easy to find moments where she could either avoid him, or not be around him long enough to get some serenity. 

She had forgot to bring the watch her mother had bought her the Christmas last year so she wasn’t exactly sure what time it was but it seemed to be around 7am when she saw Hopper’s car roll to a stop next to her. Eleven had told Max one day at school, Hop’s entire schedule, memorised to the second, from the period of time the small girl was holed up in his home before she was allowed to go to school with the rest of her friends.

“Good Morning Miss Mayfield, what are you doing out so early.” He questions, flicking his cigarette. 

“Hey Hop.” She smiles, walking up to his driver side window in the same manner she had done with Steve the previous night. “I wanted to get some stuff for breakfast, but I didn’t realise how early it was when I left.” 

The chief studies her carefully, before sniffing. “Get in kid, I’ll take you home.” Max hops into his police car and waits patiently while he drives her back to her house. “Janes been asking about you obsessively.” He breaks the silence but Max doesn’t take her eyes off the road.

“I’ve just been busy at home, Mom and Neil are away so I’ve just been at home mainly making sure the place doesn’t burn down.” She jokes.

“When did kids stop being kids?” He’s asking himself the question mainly and doesn’t expect the young red head to answer. “I’m sure one day away from the house won’t kill you, kid.” He says, his hand hanging out the window. 

She knew it was a joke, but she couldnt help but imagine what Hop would do to Billy if he knew that his statement was all but true.

They pull up outside her house and Max says her goodbye, jumping out of his Jeep and heading inside, pretending to unlock the front door until Hop drives off before she goes around the back and climbs back through her window. 

She changes quickly before stuffing the clothes she wore into her clothes basket and heads out into the kitchen, ready to pretend that she wasn’t at the house of the boy Billy would kill her for seeing.

Max was getting awfully good at playing pretend.

******

Billy had woken up a few hours after she’d gotten home, he’d raced into the kitchen thinking she had disappeared for good but was surprised to see her at the stove making breakfast. 

“Good morning.” She greeted him quietly, he walked over to her and tapped his knuckles against her head. 

“Don’t get out of bed before me again.” He orders, opening the fridge and taking out the carton of orange juice before taking a swig.

“Sorry.” She mumbles, flipping one pancake in the pan, she used the spatula to point at the plate next to her of pancakes that were already cooked. 

Her brother took a second plate out of the cupboard and stocked up with breakfast, opting to sit on the breakfast bar rather than at the table. He wanted to watch her cook.

“Doesn’t taste like total shit.” He admits, pouring some more maple syrup on his plate. “Why the fuck were you up so early.”

“I thought you’d be hungry.” She answers, taking the food out of the pan and putting it on the plate, she turns the burners off and grabs a plate for herself and joins Billy on the bench.

“What, you my little house wife now or something?” She chooses not to answer him, she wasn’t really sure what to say. He licks maple syrup off his thumb and chugs some more juice. 

“You know Max,” he begins, sliding off the bench to walk to the sink so he could rinse his plate of the sugary syrup. “I was thinking last night, that no matter where you go, I’ll always be close behind.”

The thought dawned on Max thought he was telling the truth, she hadn’t fully comprehended it yet, but when Billy finally got his place, nothing would stop him from convincing their parents to let her live with him and then it would be all over red rover. 

She stares at her food, trying not to think about a life locked away in a house forever with Billy. 

Forever was, in fact, a fucking _awfully_ long time.

“When is this gonna stop?” She asks, her voice so quiet that it was easy for him to pretend he didn’t hear anything. 

“You’re not eating. Why don’t you eat something.” He orders, he watches as she begins to slowly eat her pancakes, he hoped she didn’t think he wasn’t stupid enough to not notice how her weight had begun to slowly plummet. 

He reaches into his jean pocket and produces a folded piece of paper which he hands to his sister, she takes it cautiously, placing her plate next to her and unfolding the paper. The title at the top of the page reads:

**_I.S.W.M.U.O.M.W.N._ **   


Max looks at Billy, hoping for an explanation on the title. 

“They were passing it around at Tommy’s party last night. It’s a poem that some weird girl at Tommy’s work wrote, he reckons it was inspired by _V.C. Andrews_.” 

The authors name was familiar to Max, she’d seen her works in the public library; although she had been told by her mother she was too young for the the things inside. _Flowers in The Attic_ , however, was Billy’s favourite book. He wasn’t much of a reader, but he did have a copy of the book stuffed in his desk drawer. 

Max had read it one day while he was at a party and picked up on the major incest plot instantly and only fully realised now why he liked the book so much.

“The title is supposed to stand for a short story she published in some pulp confession magazine that nobody’s ever been able to find. It made me think of you, so I bought it home to show you.” He yawns and stretches. “Anyway, the title stands for _I Slept With My Uncle On My Wedding Night_.” He scratches his bare torso. “Don’t say I never give you nothing.” He leaves her alone in the kitchen as she reads the poem. 

_ ‘I wake up and I creep _

_ Down the hall to your feet _

_ Where I lay like a dog for you _

_ In silk down to my knees _

_ Wet with spit, red with need _

_ Three fingers in, you go deep _

_ Reach inside me, please hide me _

_ Somewhere they will never find me.’ _

The poem gives Max the creeps, but she dare not throw it away, too scared of the punishment that might follow if Billy found the paper in the trash. 

Instead, she folds it into tinier sections and plans on putting it into her jewellery box; no doubt Billy’s snooping would discover it and she’d someway or another earn brownie points.

She can’t stomach the rest of her pancakes and leaves to lay on the floor of her bedroom, wondering what it would take for the entire roof to cave in around her.

*****

Her harsh breathing fills his room, his moans mix with her own and create a cacophony of an incestuous orchestra. She’s riding Billy while she bites back tears, it was more painful with her being on top but he liked to be able to see her face when she climaxed.

She rolls her hips just like he had taught her to do before, she slips her arms behind her and rests them on his thighs before bouncing up and down on his cock, her arse slapping against his crotch with each lift and drop of her hips.  
It hadn’t occurred to her yet that Billy had stopped moving his hips to the same pace as her own.

He wraps his hand around her throat and brings her face harshly towards his own. “Where did you learn that?” He asks, anger rising in him.  She stops moving and stares down at him and that earns her a slap across the face. 

“Answer me.” He hisses. “The fuck did you learn to do that? Huh? You been fucking someone else?” 

She shakes her head furiously, “No.” she stammers. 

“Then where the fuck did you learn to do something like that?” He thrusts up into her so hard she chokes on her own breath and whimpers. 

“I just thought about it.” She whispers, her voice shaking. She wasn’t lying, her body just moved on it’s own she hadn’t realised that Billy would’ve known something different about the way she moved. 

He doesn’t agree with her answer and shoves her off him harshly, she hits the wall and is surprised she doesn’t almost go through it. He grabs her leg and pulls her so she’s on her back and then he wedges his way in between her legs so his face is over her pussy where he licks a harsh strip from her opening up to the hood of her clit and Max gasps. He stops what he’s doing for a minute so he can grab Max’s underwear from the ground and shoves them into her mouth where she gags slightly on them. 

He then pushes his face back into her crotch and starts to eat her out, Max’s hips buck involuntarily and Billy lifts his head.

“Aww, is that sensitive?” He taunts. “Does that feel good?” He licks again over her clit and Max moans into the makeshift gag. Billy then lifts his head and slaps her hard, right on her pussy and her legs snap closed but he just shoves them back open. “Did that hurt?” He hits her again and she cries into the gag. 

Billy hits her swollen clit four more times before shifting so his cock is pressed against her pussy hole and he shoves into her hard.

She grabs the sheets as Billy drills into her, her head fills with noise and it’s almost too much to bare. He doesn’t let up, fucking her relentlessly, he’s annoyed with her but this time she didn’t even do anything wrong.

“This is your fault.” He spits at her. “This is all because you just had to fuck up.” His balls slap against her each time he enters her. “This wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t of fucked up so bad.” He puts his hand on the side of her face and pushes it away so she’s forced to look away from him. “I can’t even look at you right now.”

She’s not even sure what he’s angry about, whether it’s because she moved a different way during sex or just because his default mood was pure rage.  
He keeps pace and when he’s on the cusp, he takes the gag out of her mouth and tells her to look at him. “Tell me how it feels.”

“It feels good.”  
He hits her, hard.

“Answer me the proper way.” His voice is husky and drenched in lust.

“It feels really good.” She whimpers. He grabs her face in his hand and squeezes hard. 

“It feels really good what?” He pushes the issue, but he doesn’t care, her little twat felt so good around his dick and he was so close to stuffing her full of his come, and he just wanted to hear it before he spilled inside his baby sister. 

“It feels really good, Billy.” She chokes out. 

That did it, white bursts spread behind his eyes as he bored into her, his come spurting inside of her, filling her up nicely and he groaned out her name as his balls tightened. 

Billy pulled out of her and laid by her side, reaching for a cigarette and lighting it, exhaling the smoke. 

“Do you want to go to the theatre tomorrow?” He asks.

Max must’ve been in a fever dream, there was no way her step brother had just come inside of her and then offered to take her to the movies, but she still solemnly accepted because she knew he wasn’t asking to actually get her answer, he was _telling_ her what they would do tomorrow. 

She closes her eyes slowly and thinks about the time her father had taken her to the beach and tried to tell her a joke that she was too young to understand.

_ “Did you hear the one about the fisherman who passed? He didn’t jump off the ledge, he just stepped out into the air and pulled the ground up to him really fast like he was fishing for concrete.”  _

Max had finally understood what the joke meant, and how she had started to feel like the fisherman.


	6. Freaks Forever

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Torture porn inside your head, tie me up, keep me in your bedroom.  
> The Christians screaming to us through your T.V.  
> They don’t save me, they don’t save you

Max is sitting on the bathroom floor reading a comic book whilst Billy showers, even though it had only been a few days since he had set the rules in place, Max had gotten used to the routine that slowly gained traction in their day to day life.   
If her brother was working, she would be up at 8am, dressed and ready to leave the house by 8:30am so he could be at work by 8:50.   
If he wasn’t working, he would wake up at 10am and take time to shower and she would need to be in the room with him, after his shower he would spend forty minutes in his room working out, during this time she was to make his breakfast and begin cleaning the house. 

The days would seep together in a rugged normalcy that was impossible to understand; today was a slight detour from their routine as Billy had offered to take Max to the movies and she agreed, not that she had a choice in the matter.   
The water in the shower stops and the Hargrove boy steps out onto the mat, wrapping a towel around his waist.   
“What are you reading?” He asks, combing his hair in the mirror. 

“X-men.” She answers. 

He doesn’t listen, he’d only asked her so she wasn’t so silent. He sniffs, rubbing his nose with his thumb and looks down at her. “What movie do you wanna see?”   
She closes the comic book and looks up at him. 

“Sleepaway Camp is playing at Starcourt.” She says idly. “I heard it’s good.” 

“Blood?” He asks.   
“Lots of it.” She replies smoothly, she knew exactly what movies Billy likes.   
“Rating?” He questions.   
“R.” She says. If there was violence, Billy would be all over it.   
“Guess we’ll have to sneak you in.” He says, helping her up and leading her into his room so he could decide what she’d be wearing. 

She follows behind him quickly and sits herself on his bed while he disappears into her room, she waits patiently but he’s taking his time and she wonders what he’s looking for.   
He comes back after a short time holding the outfit he wants her to wear; a striped dress on a coat hanger. Susan had purchased it for Max the summer of last year and her daughter had immediately shoved it into the back of her closet to immediately be forgotten.   
She was truly surprised he’d even been able to find it.

Max stares at it, it was a simple dress with pastel stripes that ran up the skirt and bodice. Her brother gives it to her and she holds it in her hands, looking up at him almost in an effort to say a silent no that Billy will never listen to; she knows she doesn’t have much choice in the matter of if she can wear it or not. 

She stands up and turns her back to Billy, taking her shirt off and stepping out of her pyjama bottoms. He inspects her behind and his pride almost exploded out of his chest when he sees the bruises that adorn Max’s arse.   
Colours of yellow, purple and green stretch from the top of her thighs up towards the end of her arsecrack and he’s hard when he sees them. 

She slips into the dress Billy chose for her and immediately she feels uncomfortable. She wasn’t someone who wore dresses, so wearing one now just made her feel all kinds of not right.   
In length, the dress rested in the middle of her thighs.   
Billy hands her a pair of socks and her converse as well and she quickly puts them on.   
He checks her over, and notices the intricate splatter of bruises that go up her arms and he leaves for her bedroom again, coming back with a large white cardigan and gives it to her to put on and tells her to plait her hair which she does, he grabs his wallet from the bedside table and they leave.

*****

It had been a couple of weeks since Max had been in the Starcourt Mall and she follows closely next to Billy as they head in the direction of the theatre.   
In order to get to the movies, they’d have to pass Scoops Ahoy and Max was silently hoping Steve wasn’t working today.   
As they pass the ice cream parlour Max looks in quickly and sees the older boy behind the counter serving ice cream to some little kids. 

He looks up and catches her eye and she looks away just as quick.   
Steve had only seen Max a few days prior but she looked _so different_. The butt end of the surprise came from the fact she was wearing a dress and a white cardigan, something Max would certainly never wear.   
He wasn’t sure if it was the clothes she was wearing or the way she held herself, but the red headed girl looked a lot slimmer and his brow furrowed. 

He was reminded of the bracelet of bruises that covered her wrist the night he dropped her at the Sinclair house; he really hoped that Max was okay and that Steve was just over thinking things.   
But he’d been around the party long enough to know when one of them wasn’t okay. 

Billy leads his younger sister in to the cinema and purchases two tickets for _Sleepaway Camp,_ the girl behind the counter blushes as Billy smiles at her and takes the tickets briskly. He also buys a large popcorn and soda for Max.   
She needed to eat, the last thing he wanted was for her idiot Mom to start asking questions when she got back from her trip. 

They both walk towards the cinema room, Billy had initially thought he’d have to sneak Max into the movie but nobody really seemed to care and they walked in easy enough.   
Billy led them to spare seats in the very back corner, so that they couldn’t be seen by other people.   
The siblings sit back in their seats and wait for the movie to start; Max’s senses were in hyperdrive while she sits very close to her brother.   
He had been sweet with her all morning, but she was smart enough to know it wouldn’t last very long. 

The movie starts and the lights go down, Max can see a few people littered throughout the cinema. Billy doesn’t say anything to Max, he’s silent and sips his soda; he does move the popcorn close to her though, she knew it meant he wanted her to eat it but she just physically couldn’t.   
Max knew that the reason she had stopped eating was because it was the only thing left in her life that she could really control.   
She does take a small handful of the popcorn and holds it in her hand, she can feel Billy side eyeing her so she pretends to scoop the handful into her mouth and chews until Billy looks away where she then takes the chance to drop the popcorn beside her seat. 

The movie was really good, and the gore was really believably practical. Maxine could hear the excitement in Billy’s voice every time the antagonist killed someone.   
It’s reached the scene where the killer sneaks into the campers bathroom and finds one of the female campers, Meg, in the shower.   
Billy reaches over and grabs Max’s hand pulling it over to his crotch, she stiffens under him and bites her bottom lip. 

“Make me come Max, be a good girl.” He whispers, she doesn’t move her hand so he tightens his grip on her wrist. “Ma-ax.” He taunts, he drags out her name. “You owe me, shit bird. I’ve spoiled you so much today.”   
She begins to slowly move her hand against his jeans but she knows what he wants. 

Meg screams as she’s brutally murdered on screen while Max unzips Billy’s pants and pops the button. She frees her brothers cock from his pants and begins to pump him while she stares at the movie screen; somewhere in between watching the movie and wishing _she was in_ the movie so she could potentially be killed off by now.   
She continues to give him a hand job as his breathing intensifies, he reaches up and wraps his hand around her head, trying to bring it down so her lips can wrap around him. 

“Billy, what if people can see us?” She hisses. 

“Shut up.” Is all he says, pulling her head down. She takes him in her mouth, trying to fit him all in.   
While the deaths continue to play out on the screen, Billy finally comes when Mel, the camp owner, is shot through the throat with an arrow. 

*****

They exit the movie cinema and head towards the car park so they can go home. As they’re almost at the escalator, they run head on into Joyce Byers and her boys. 

“Max!” She greets the young girl with excitement. “It’s been too long since I’ve seen you.”   
It was true, Max hadn’t been around the Byers’ residence since a few weeks before Summer began. “How have you been?” Joyce’s eyes flicker to Billy but they don’t linger. 

“Good.” Max answers. “Everything is okay.” 

Will smiles at Max, waving. “Hey!” 

She smiles at the small Byers boy.   
“Well, it was good seeing you all, but we’re in a hurry.” Billy interrupts, trying to manoeuvre his sister away from them. Joyce stops them though when she takes Max in completely and notices that the young girl has dropped a few pounds. 

She places her hand on Max’s shoulder and gets down to her height. “Why don’t you come over for dinner tonight, Max? I heard your parents are away.” 

Max doesn’t say anything, she just smiles at her friends mother and follows her old brother down the escalator. She doesn’t even say anything to Billy as they walk through the mall and exit, she just waits patiently beside him while he smokes a cigarette in the summer sun.

***** 

Billy has his cock buried in Max’s pussy on the kitchen table when the phone rings, he ignores it as he continues to pound into his sister, who is crying silently with each thrust.   
When the shrill cry of the kitchen phone ends, it immediately starts up again which is enough to annoy Billy into pulling roughly out of Max. 

“Answer the fucking phone.” He grunts, grabbing her hair and pulling her off the table. 

She grabs the phone and holds it to her ear. “Hello?” 

“Hey Max!” It’s Will, his voice travels through the receiver. “My Mom was wondering if you still wanted to come over tonight.” 

Max silently curses Joyce Byers, now knowing that the continuous phone calls were orchestrated by her in attempt to make sure Max was okay. “Give me a sec.” she holds her hand over the phone and looks at Billy who is clearly not in any mood for this.   
“It’s Will Byers.” She says. 

“What the fuck does that little faggot want.” He’s clearly agitated. 

“His Mom wants to know if I can stay the night.” She extended her welcome because she figured if she was asking for something, she may as well go all out. 

Billy looks at her in a way that asks if she thinks he’s fucking stupid. “No.” He says. 

“Billy, if I just stop seeing all of my friends at once, they might be suspicious.” She argues. “And it’s only Will, you know what he’s like.” This much was true, it wasn’t exactly a secret that Will had no interest in girls, or even boys for that matter.   
Will was just, well, _Will_. 

Billy stares at his younger half, jaw clenched, before he finally agrees. “One night, one _fucking_ night Max. Do not make me regret it either.” 

She smiles at him, in gratitude and brings the phone back to her ear. “I’ll be there at 5 this afternoon.” She says, she waits for Will’s response before saying her goodbye and hanging up. 

Billy doesn’t even wait for her thank you, he just pulls her back up onto the table and takes his place back inside her intoxicating little cunt. He swears at the phone for trying to destroy his chance of filling his little sister up with come. 

He cranes his neck to one side as he keeps thrusting, looking at Max with those green coke bottle eyes and wraps a hand around her throat.   
“Max, what do you say?”   
Slaps fill the air while Billy works hard to fuck his entire essence into his little sister. 

She reaches up behind her head and grabs the edge of the table as it rocks back and forth each time Billy moves. “Thank you.” She answers. 

He squeezes her throat and slams into her, she chokes out and fixes her last response. 

“Thank you Billy for trying to make me good.” 

And just like that, he’s coming hard inside of her, almost collapsing hard on top of her.   
He loved the way she spoke to him, but he was also sure that if there was anyone who _truly_ believed in God, they would be able to find him _inside_ of Maxine’s sweet little pussy. 

*****

He pulls up outside of the run down shit hole that is the Byers home. He taps his fingers on the steering wheel while Max grabs her bag from by her legs, as she goes to leave he grabs her wrist. 

“You be outside waiting for me by 8am tomorrow, do you understand? Because if you’re not, I’ll come into that house and get you myself.” He threatens. 

She nods, and he lets go of her. “C’mere.” He orders, she looks quickly to the door before leaning in and planting a kiss on Billy’s lips and then leaves the car and heading over to the house. She waits for Billy to pull out of the drive way before knocking on the door, Joyce answers and ushers Max inside greeting her and asking her all sorts of questions she doesn’t really know how to answer. 

“How long has it been since you’ve eaten! Look at you, come on sweetheart let’s stuff you full of food.” Joyce laughs, leading her into the kitchen and sitting her at the table where Will is sitting drawing. Max sits next to him and says hello and Joyce sets about making food for the Mayfield girl and her son. 

“Mom, is it okay if Max and I go hang out in my room while you cook?” Will asks, pulling his stray sheets of paper together. 

“Of course, but I hope you both are hungry cause I’m cookin’ up a storm.” Joyce smiles. 

The two teens head into Will’s room where he shuts the door and they both sit on the floor, across from each other.   
“Are you okay?” He asks almost immediately. 

Max looks at him like he’s crazy. “Of course.” She lies. “Why does everyone ask me that?” 

“Because we don’t think you are.” He says honestly, sliding his drawings into a manila folder. The thing about Will is that he had a way of making almost anyone open up to him but Max knew that if she said anything to him, it would be all over. 

“And what makes you all think I’m not okay?” She questions, if she had known she’d be interrogated the minute she stepped foot in the Byers’ home, she would’ve stayed with Billy. 

“Well for one, you’re in a dress.” It’s a simple thing but anyone who knew Max knew that dresses just weren’t her thing. 

She wraps the cardigan around her body and looks around Will’s room. “Will this isn’t.” She takes in a deep breathe. “This isn’t something you would understand.” 

“Is it like last year?” He questions, reminding them both of this time last year when Will was under the control of the Mind Flayer. 

She doesn’t answer him, how could she even explain to Will that her issues came anywhere near what he had experienced? She shakes her head and smiles at him. “Has Jonathan showed you anymore music?” 

Jonathan Byers had a good taste in music and would often pass his records and cassettes down to Will who would in turn show is friends.   
Will gets up and goes to his music box, flicking through his records, Jonathan had only just given him some of his records last week. “There’s this album new album by _Mötley Crüe_.” He takes out the record and puts it on his player, lifting the pin and putting it down, and pressing play. 

He takes his seat back with Max and he shows her his comic books, they look through them while the dulcet rock tones of _Mötley Crüe_ fill the Byers boy’s room.   
They talk animatedly about the comic books and pass them between each other when a song catches Max’s attention. 

_You know that I've seen_   
_Too many romantic dreams_   
_Up in lights, fallin' off_   
_The silver screen_   
_My heart's like an open book_   
_For the whole world to read_   
_Sometimes nothing keeps me together_   
_At the seams_

She stops talking and looks at Will, he looks back up at her smiling before he stops. “Max?” 

“Will, do you ever feel like you’re out of place?” Lately, Max had felt like she was an incorrect piece in the puzzle of her life while her brother just continued to try and cut off pieces of her to make her fit. 

“Everyone feels like they’re out of place.” Will says. “That’s what life is.” 

She shakes her head, “No Will, I mean, do you feel like there’s everyone else, and then there’s you?”   
He nods, piling his comic books up, “Freaks.” 

Max almost chokes on her breath, “I didn’t mean that!” She scoffs. 

“The definition of freak, is a person of abstract or unusual nature, Max. That’s who we are, freaks.” 

Max thinks about it for a moment, and thinks about how her life has turned into a massive shit show and she smiles at Will Byers and her smile is real, real for the first time in a long time. “Freaks.” She tastes the word in her mouth before mentally branding herself with it. 

“Freaks Forever.” He smiles back. 

Max decided, then and there, that she loves Will Byers. 

*****

Had Max known that Joyce organised a complete party sleep over, she would have snuck out the window.   
Everyone else had piled into the house an hour after she had and it all made sense as to why Joyce decided to cook an entire feast fit for an army of Navy Vet’s. 

They’re in the basement, surrounded by the food Joyce had cooked, listening to Mike and Dustin arguing over whether or not Dustin’s character deserved to be _almost_ killed in their last D&D campaign. 

“Son of a bitch!” Dustin yells. “You know that I had 3 life saving points!” 

“You did not!” Mike argues back. 

Max zones out, she can feel Lucas sitting beside her but she keeps getting stuck in her own head, she turns and looks at him, smiling.   
“You okay?” He asks. 

She closes her eyes and breathes in deeply, trying not to bite his head off. She just wished everyone would stop asking her that, the short answer was that, _no_ , Max was _not okay_. But there wasn’t any way for her to tell anyone without their being serious repercussions. Max pulls her knees up close to her chest and rests her chin on them. “If Billy knew everyone was here, I’d be done for.” 

“When did you become so scared of Billy?” Mike questions, looking at the red headed girl. “You’re freakin’ _Mad Max_.” 

“It’s none of your business, Mike.” Max adds, looking at him. His hair swept out at the ends, he had stopped cutting it shortly after Eleven came home. 

“Well all of a sudden you’re all wimpy, and I just wanna know why.” He never really understood the social queue that stood for _‘stop talking_ ’. 

Max stands up and Mike follows suit, “Would you just shut up already!” She yells at him, everyone else stands up with them, surprised by the sudden turn of events. 

“When did you become such a psycho!” Mike yells back. 

Lucas tries to push in between them, asking Mike to just back off, the Wheeler boy was notorious for pushing the boundaries and causing unnecessary fights. The two ignore him, their fiery energy almost ready to burst out into a fiery tornado.   
“You’re calling me a psycho?” She screams, she steps forward and shoves him incredibly hard, causing him to stumble back. “You don’t even get it! Why would you?” 

Mike fixes himself and yells at Max that she’s a _fucking bitch_ , “You were never even supposed to be in this party anyway! Nobody even wanted you!” The minute he says it, regret pools inside of his stomach. 

Tears spring to Max’s eyes, she really, really hated her friends seeing her cry but what Mike had said really struck a chord. “Fuck you Mike! I hate you!” She turns around and dashes up the stairs and locks herself in the bathroom. She crawls into the bathtub and cries into her knees.   
She didn’t even want to come here in the first place, so why was it fair that everyone was treating her like this?  
She can hear the door unlock and open, “I’m okay Mrs Byers, she wipes her nose, “I didn’t mean to make a scene.” 

Only, it isn’t Joyce Byers. 

“Max?” The soft confused voice of Jane Hopper fills the small bathroom and Max looks up into her kind brown eyes. “Okay?” She questions.   
The small girl had only just started to really learn how to speak and whilst she was learning quickly, most of what she says was slightly broken english. 

Maxine wipes her eyes and sniffs, trying to stop crying. “Yes, I’m okay.” She answers. “I’m sorry for getting mad at Mike.” 

“Asshole.” Jane answers and Max laughs; she knew _exactly_ who had taught her that language and it was even more ironic that she was using it to describe him. “What is wrong?” She questions, sitting down next to the bathtub. 

Max looks at her, and for some reason, when it was Jane asking, it didn’t feel so bad because she knew that the dark haired girl meant well. “I’m just a little sad.” 

“Why?” 

Max is trying to figure out how to properly explain to her in a way that this girl might understand. “El,” Rarely anyone called her that anymore, other than Mike that is. “Can I ask you a question?”   
The smaller girl nods.   
“When you were at Hawkins’ Lab, before you got out, how did you feel?” 

She can see Jane thinking about it and she was most likely deciding on how to actually put it into words. “I felt.” She bites her inner cheek. “I wanted to cry all of the time.” She pauses. “Bad men, bad things.” She continues. 

Max nods, she’s crying again, it was a brief, broken explanation, but it was exactly how Max was feeling at that very moment. “Yeah, that’s how I feel.”   
Jane stands up and hugs Max, and it’s a strange hug because Max isn’t sure what Jane understands from what she just said, or if she’s hugging her because Jane knows that’s what people are supposed to do when someone is crying; whichever one it is, its comforting and Max feels slightly less alone. 

*****

Max can see from Dustin’s watch that its 11pm, all of her friends were asleep; the argument she had with Mike long forgotten. She ascends the stairs, hoping to sneak outside for some air and just some moments alone to herself; after Billy had begun to do those terrible things to her, it was almost like she was never by herself. 

As she reaches the top of the stairs, she can see the kitchen lights on and she walks over to see if anyone is there or if they were just left on and forgotten about.   
Joyce is sitting at the table, sipping a drink and smoking a cigarette, she notices Max as she walks in and welcomes the young girl to sit with her.

“Everyone else asleep?” She questions, ashing her cigarette. 

“Yeah, I couldn’t sleep, Dustin is snoring.” Max admits, pulling the sleeves of her cardigan up to her palms.   
Joyce nods in agreement, she’d had those boys around at her house so many times in their young lives that she had become accustomed to their many habits; be them awake or asleep. 

She takes a drag of her cigarette and studies the young girl in her kitchen, who was currently studying her home as well.  
How was it possible for children to age so quickly in such a short space of time?   
Max had a feeling about her that Joyce wasn’t too keen on, it wasn’t necessarily a bad opinion of Maxine but more so that something was going on and she couldn’t pin point exactly what it was.   
However, she wasn’t about to ask the teen to tell her, that little outburst this afternoon explained all she needed to know. 

“When do your parents come home?” She questions, taking a sip of her drink. She gets up and goes to the fridge, pouring a glass of cola for Max who takes it graciously. 

“Next month sometime.” The girl answers. 

“Are you happy to have them home?” Joyce knew how to get an answer she was looking for just by side stepping over the obvious question she couldn’t ask. She’d been on this planet years longer than these children, so she knew a thing or two. 

“I guess so, I do miss my Mom.” Max answers smoothly. 

“What about your step dad?” Joyce continues. 

Max pauses slowly as she puts her glass back down on the table. “Mhmm.” She replies, smiling at Joyce. “Of course.” 

Joyce didn’t seem convinced, but she still pretended to believe the answer, she opens her packet of cigarettes so only she can see the contents, the packet is still full but she puts them down. “Since you’re up here, would you mind helping me?” She asks. She points to the cupboard above the stove. “Would you mind grabbing my carton of cigarettes from the cupboard, Max?” She makes a show of shaking her current packet. “I’m all out.” 

Max gets up slowly and walks over to the stove, she reaches up and opens the cupboard door, Joyce stares at her back and keeps track of the pyjama top as it slides up and reveals the faint hint of pink and deep purple running diagonally up her back. Max stands back down and Joyce quickly averts her gaze; the young red head gives her the carton of cigarettes and Joyce thanks her. 

They sit there in monetary silence while Max finishes her drink and Joyce smokes another cigarette.   
As she gets up to leave, Joyce stops her by saying “Do you know that as a parent, you stop learning to parent just your kids and you start parenting other peoples kids too.” 

Max looks at her, confused for a moment, but stays where she is.   
“Just because you’ve only been friends with Will for a year and a bit, doesn’t mean that I don’t think of you as my own.”   
Max swallows hard, stuck to the spot.   
“And if there is anything you need from me sweetie, you just let me know.” 

Max walks down the stairs with the faint feeling of fear hanging around her shoulders like a vulture circling a dead animal. 

*****

She picks up the house phone, punching in his number knowing full well he wouldn’t be asleep; he’d probably be on the couch with a bottle of Jack watching an old rerun of _Magnum P.I_.   
She was right because his gruff voice answers just after the third ring. 

“Do you know what time it is?” 

She exhales smoke, “oh shush, I can hear _Magnum_ in the background, Hop, don’t try and pretend you were sleeping.” 

He’s silent for a second but then counters with, “Well what the hell are you calling me for at 11pm at night?” Even though he was trying to be arrogant, she knew him well enough to hear the concern in his voice. “Is Jane okay?” 

“She’s fine, I was calling because I have a question. What do you know about Maxine’s step father?” She asks through the receiver, ashing her cigarette and twirling the phone cord between her fingers. 

“Who, Neil?” He asks, “What’s happened?” 

She looks around the kitchen wall at the doorway to the basement hoping that Max was well asleep by now. “Hop I think there’s something going on.” She turns back to look out the window, darkness circled around the entire house. “Max is really thin now.” 

Hopper knew about Joyce’s habit of jumping to conclusions but he had also seen Max the morning he dropped her back at her house and even _he_ could see she was little. “Joyce, that doesn’t mean-“ 

She cuts him off and tells him about how withdrawn she is now, and the way she had acted after her argument with Mike earlier that afternoon. Hopper is dismissing them all as regular teenage behaviour; it wasn’t Jim _not caring_ about the young girl, but sometimes he couldn’t answer to every call about a teenage girl who yelled at boys in the basement and then cry in the bathroom of a friends house.   
It isn’t until Joyce tells him the last thing that he really starts to listen. 

“They were big Hopper, looked like hand prints.” 

“Where?” Is all he asks and Joyce tells him.   
She can almost hear him wipe his face with the palm of his hand as he realises what is actually happening in his small little town. 

“Jim?” She rarely used his first name, he listened intently to what she had to say. “After everything, with the lab, and the monsters and my _own boy_ being possessed, I almost forgot.” 

He doesn’t answer but she continues. 

“I almost forgot that even plain old people can be evil.”

After she’s filled him in, she says her goodbye and puts the phone back on the handle and takes a seat again at the table, lighting another cigarette. she thinks about the events of tonight.   
Joyce Byers’ knew, as well as she knew to the very core of her being that she was alive, that someone; be it her parents or someone else, was hurting Maxine Mayfield. 

And she also knew, that nothing would stop her from figuring out who that person was. 


	7. Poacher’s Pride

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Limb to limb, split spine to sternum  
> Ripped open and spread out, swallowed in my bowels  
> Anything to make you stay  
> Anything to make you stay

Billy can remember the first time a blossom of lust for his little sister sprang to life inside of him; he doesn’t think she remembers because they were still in California when it happened.

Billy walked in to use the bathroom, not realising Max hadn’t locked it and walked straight in on his little sister as she stepped out of the shower.

She yelled at him to get out while she wrapped a towel around herself quickly and he said a gruff ‘sorry’ before slamming the door behind him; he went back to his room and sat on his bed.

Even though she had covered herself, he still saw a flash of bare skin, her hairless pussy and small tits that had just started to grow in. When the fuck did Max start going through puberty?

His jeans tightened but he pushed the thought away and picked up his weights, trying to workout and forget what he had just seen.

It was then when it started, the feelings, sure she was a stupid piece of shit who was always up his ass about something or other; always getting him in trouble, but something inside of Billy pulled him towards her.

At first, the night where he took her virginity, he just thought it was payback, that he was getting a one up on her for all the dumb shit she put him through, but it wasn’t until he was laying in bed that night when he realised it.

He was undeniably obsessed with his little sister, he closed his eyes and thought back to all of his past sexual conquests and realised something, almost like an epiphany, that those sluts all had one thing in common.

In some way of another, each one of them resembled or reminded him of Maxine in some way, shape, or form.

For instance, there was Claire Webster, a few weeks after he’d caught the wet naked glimpse of Max in the bathroom; he’d met Claire at a house party.

She was about 5 foot nothing, full of pep and had a mouth on her that Billy enjoyed feeling wrapped around his cock.

It wasn’t ‘til she’d lifted her head and whispered his name when he saw her; Maxine, lips glistened in spit from his pre cum.

He’d finished pretty quickly after that.

Then there was Marlana Freberg, she had hair the colour of fire and ice blue eyes and Billy fucked her so hard until she’d taken the shape of his sister.

He’s smoking a cigarette while lying in his bed, Max was at that faggot Byers house and he was by himself.

It had been the first night in a while that he’d been away from his sister and his bed did feel emptier without her there.

He’s sure there was a word for the way he felt about that red headed brat, obsessed? Haunted? Preoccupied?

Of course not, he wasn’t exactly a retard, there was no way he was obsessed with her, maybe more so possessed by her.

Or possessive of her.

Billy knew that his sister was his other half, he knew it was true even if it was a fucked up description, but it was a hard simple fact. Billy never felt like he was complete unless he was around Max even if he had a pretty shit way of showing it.

When Billy was born it was almost like half of him was ripped clean in half only being able to find the missing piece of him when he met Max the day Neil introduced the two. He exhales sharply, how was it possible that the other piece of himself was buried in Maxine’s mouth, and he only found himself whole again the moment she spoke.

He also knew that wherever Max would go, he would follow closely behind because he’d had a taste of completion and he wasn’t just gonna let that go.

He partially blamed his upbringing for the feelings he had towards his sister, when Max grew up to be kind and he grew up to be the form of a gnarled rotten oak tree, it was only science that he’d want to be with something good.

It was also true, that if Max was to disappear, be it leave him forever or die, he would be soon to follow her into the dark abyss. And he hated that she had that effect on him, after all what was that Joan Jett song? I Hate That I Love You?

******

Max is sitting on the steps of the Byers home when Billy’s Camaro pulls up, she walks quickly and slips into the passenger side and he pulls out of the dirt driveway and heads in the direction of home.

She watches the blur of trees and houses as the car rolls down the main road, Billy didn’t speak to her as they approached the house and he was still silent when the car came to a stop.

She dares not move either, not until he says she can leave; lest she make her brother mad. 

“What did you do last night?” He questions.

“Will and I just listened to Mötley albums and read comic books.” This wasn’t a lie and it wasn’t a lie that she was leaving out the other parts of the night.

He sniffs, taking his keys out of the ignition. “Hmm.” He says, his keys rattle as he holds them in his lap. “Anything else?” He pushes.

“No.” She whispers.

“Well.” He says, rolling his head against the seat to look at her. She looked like a fawn caught in the sights of a mountain lion. “Then why did Chief Hopper call me?”

Her heart plummets about 10 feet, why did Hop call? Did he know something was up when he dropped Max home that morning? Did Joyce say something? Did El say something? “I’m not sure.” Her voice is shaky, and she feels like she’s vibrating with how much she’s shaking.

Billy pauses. “Get in the house.”

Max obeys, scurrying into the house like a lost animal, hoping to God that Billy isn’t angry and that he’s only agitated that he was the one to answer Hop’s phone call.

He stands in the landing of the house, kicking his shoes off before walking barefoot into the kitchen.

She swallows hard and follows suit, he takes a beer out of the fridge, cracking it open and taking a large mouthful.

“Chief Jim Hopper, Hawkins finest, seems to think someone’s hurting you Max.” He finally admits.

Similarly to a mirror dropped on concrete, Maxine Mayfield’s life is shattered cleanly into a thousand slithers of glass. She doesn’t take her eyes of Billy as he leans against the counter.

“Now where could a crazy old cop get an idea like that?”

“I didn’t say anything, Billy, I swear.” She says honestly, almost at full peak anxiety. “I swear.” 

“See, I’d believe you Max, but you spend one fucking night at Byers and all of a sudden all these questions start popping up.” He puts his beer can on the counter. “He asked me if I was okay, and if our Dad was acting weird toward us.”

Things were looking up, at least Hop didn’t think it was Billy, at least that counted for something, right?

He’s in front of her in seconds, her face in his hands. “Max, what did you tell them?”

“Nothing!” She chokes out, “I swear, it was nothing.” He let’s her face go so he can have a better position of backhanding her, she’s sent flying to the linoleum floor, looking back at her brother. He’s split her lip but he’s far from caring, he’s only angered by her disobedience and the fact that she’s gone off and blabbed.

“Billy you have to believe me.” He pulls her up by her forearm and takes her into the room, fuck she was really gonna get it this time. She’s trying to push his hand away but he’s got her tight, he takes her into his room and throws her onto his bed and tells her to strip.

She does so with shaking hands, pulling her clothes of so she’s standing there naked in front of him, she doesn’t want to be here. She wants to disappear. She wants to evaporate. She wants to die.

“I hope you’re ready for your punishment, Max, I’m not going to be lenient either.” His voice is deep, deadly.

She looks up into his eyes and sees pure hatred, she just wishes he were different, wishes he were kind.

Her brow furrows and she lunges forward, pushing past him and out the door, if she could maybe delay her punishment, that stood for something, right?

He calls after her as she darts down the hallway but her escape is cut short when she trips on his boots and hits the floor. She cries out, Billy’s feet padding on the floor as he approaches her.

He doesn’t speak, just grabs her ankle and starts pulling her back towards his room.

She kicks at him as he drags her across the living room; she’s yelling at him to let her go but he ignores her.

“Billy stop!” She screams, he’s got a tight grip on her ankle as he pulls her across the landing.

He finally drops her leg and climbs on top of her, freeing himself from his jeans and thrusting into her so hard it causes her back to arch and for her to scream out in agony.

“Billy!” She screams, she’s scratching his arms and his throat trying to get him to stop but he won’t.

“Shut up!” He yells back, wrapping his hand around her throat. He squeezes tightly and the air flow from her lungs to her brain is almost cut off; her hands clench around his own. “This wouldn’t happen if you weren’t such a disrespectful bitch!”

She’s crying hard now as she tries to fight her brother off, she’d been complacent for so long that it became repetitive and exhausting and she just wanted it to all stop.

“You fucked it all up!” He pounds into her while she sobs and struggles to breathe.

He keeps tightening his grip around her neck and Max is sure she’s gonna die.

“God, Max, you tighten around me so deliciously when you’re about to die.” He thrusts into her one final time before he explodes inside of her. When he finally finishes, he releases his grip and she sucks in as much air as she can.

Billy gets off of her and puts his foot on her pelvis, and she yells as he pushes down. “Now look at you.”

She rolls onto her side and cries while Billy heads into the bedroom, as he turns his back she tries to run again but he just turns around and kicks her ribs, she’s sent onto her back.

“You tryna leave?” He questions. “Who said you could leave?” He lands another harsh kick to her side and she throws her hand up, curling into herself.

He doesn’t kick her again, he just pulls her up and drags her into her room while she flails, trying to fight him. She’s shrieking, arms flying out trying to stop him. “Let me go!” She sobs.

He just keeps pulling her along before throwing her into her room.

He slams the door closed as she launches at it, he locks it from the outside while she smashes against it; screaming through the wood.

“I hate you! I hate you!”

He had to hand it to his old man, sometimes his punishment methods came in handy. Neil had installed one way locks on all of the doors so he could lock the kids in when they misbehaved.

“Hate me all you want Max, but you’re not coming out!”

She screams at him, in an animalistic way of telling him to go fuck himself.

Banging fills her small room as she launches things at the walls before everything falls silent.

For a moment, Billy thinks she’s exhausted herself, but something tells him to check anyway.

He unlocks the door and pushes it open slowly until the window is in view.

It’s pushed all the way up and Max is sprinting across the lawn.

“Son of a bitch!” The little cunt had a short head start on Billy who bolts down the hall way, grabbing his boots and pulling them on before sprinting out to the Camaro.

He pulls out of the driveway in lightening speed, he can see Max’s body as it rushes over the lawns of their neighbours, knowing full well Billy wasn’t game enough to drive off the road. 

She turns her head and sees him behind her, before disappearing into the trees of the Hawkins woods.

He breaks harshly and jumps out of the car, running after her.

She doesn’t stop running though, she keeps going, pushing further and further into the woods trying to escape her brother.

She can hear him calling her name but she doesn’t stop, hands reach out and wrap themselves around her waist, throwing her to the ground.

“Goddamn it Maxine!” Billy roars, pulling her up. “The fuck is wrong with you!”

“Wrong with me? What the hell is wrong with you?” She screams back, trying to fight him. It starts to rain, pelting down on the both of them as Max cries. “Billy let me go! I hate you!”

He knows it’s probably true, but he doesn’t loosen his grip on his sister. “Do you really think I’m just gonna let you go?”

“Mum and Neil are gonna be home soon and you won’t-“

He cuts her off, “you really think those two are gonna stop me? You’re mine, Max. Mine. I don’t know how I can make it anymore obvious.” He shakes her lightly. “You will never, ever, leave me. Do you understand?”

She sobs into his chest as he tells her exactly the life he has planned for her. She doesn’t want it, she doesn’t want any of this.

“Max, nobody is gonna take you from me.” He pulls her back and kisses her hard on the mouth and every nerve in her body is screaming; almost like Billy’s lips are coated in acid.

She pushes him, the rain had made everything slippery and Billy falls, hitting the ground. She tries to run but he just trips her up and now they’re both in dirt and filth.

“Stop running!” He yells. It’s almost hard to hear him over how deafening the rain is.

She tries to crawl away from him but he just grabs her, pulling her to him. “You’re gonna love me one day.” He says and she protests.

“I’m never going to love you! You can do whatever you want with me but I’m never gonna love you!” She spits.

He hits her hard, mud covering her face and he tries to kiss her again but this time, she lands a hit where it really hurts; his groin.

She shoves him with every shred of strength she has within her body, and he rolls off of her, she knows that she’ll never be faster than him, but any attempt she can make at escaping is all that matters.

Max turns and begins to sprint out of the woods, she was positive they weren’t that far in so maybe she could make it onto the road.

The rain made her escape a bit hard, but that also meant it would be difficult for Billy to catch her too. She doesn’t stop running even as she slips on the mud and leaves and trips over sticks. She needs to be free, she has to get away, a summer storm would never stop her from trying to run from Billy.  
As she nears the border of the forest and road she can hear her name amongst the down pour of rain and she turns her head, Billy breaks the tree line at the same time she hits the road.

“Get away from me!” She screams to him.

“Look out!” She can barely hear him, it’s hardly audible but she turns her head and sees them.

Two orbs adjacent to one another, approaching her at quick pace: at first she’s stunned quite similarly to a deer caught in the same head lights she was.

Tires screech on the black top, the rain continues to pour and Max doesn’t feel the car when it hits her, she just takes in a sharp breathe of surprise and everything goes black.


	8. Coma Baby

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Coma Baby,  
> With your sick head,  
> The doctors saved you,  
> But you’re still dead.

Billy couldn’t think straight, everything happened so quickly. He rushes over to the scene, Max is a foot away from the car.  
He slips down next to her, on the verge of a full blown panic attack. Kneeling beside his sister to take it all in; she’s more blood than girl and it takes everything for him not to throw up right then and there. 

“I’m so sorry! She came out of nowhere!” The driver shouts over the rain. 

The pelting water washes away Max’s blood and Billy turns to the stranger, “Go get someone to call the fucking ambulance!” He yells. The man runs to the nearest house while Billy tries to wake Max.  
“C’mon, stop messing around Max, wake up!”   
He dares not touch her, he’s not sure what level of severity her wounds are and he doesn’t want to risk making them worse. Within a matter of seconds, everything was fucked. He slips his jacket off and holds it over his sister, the one thing he could do was at least protect her from the rain. 

His mind was a swirling tornado; what was going to happen now? Where would they go now? For all he knew, Max was dead, maybe she was _better_ off dead. 

When the ambulance rolled onto the scene, the EMTs were quick to push Billy out of the way, asking him what happened and he tried his best to answer all of their questions. 

She ran onto the road. He says.   
I don’t know what happened. He says.   
Her blood type is AB. He says.   
She’s allergic to penicillin. He says. 

Over the years Billy had learned a few things about his sister, especially when it was medical.   
Max was constantly in skateboarding accidents so the siblings spent a large portion of their time in the E.R. 

_But never like this_. 

They’re careful to pick her up and put her onto the stretcher, securing a neck brace around her while the Hargrove boy watches them push the stretcher into the back of the ambulance, an idea strikes.   
He lets one of the EMTs know that he’ll meet them at the hospital, he just has to get home to tell their parents what happened. 

He goes to his car and climbs in, driving towards their house; he wasn’t lying when he said he would call their parents, he would, but he was also going to grab his scapegoat, his key to freedom. 

Max’s broken skateboard. 

*****

Susan was the one who answered the phone, her soft voice floating through the receiver.

“It’s Billy.” He answers, leaning against the wall. “There’s been an accident.” 

Susan cried as Billy told her that her daughter was currently in the ICU, when he finishes, he hangs up the phone and makes his way outside to grab her skateboard.   
As he drives towards Hawkins General, he thinks about his cover story.   
No doubt the fucking cops would be there, so he had to smarten up and sort himself out. 

He pulls into a parking space and heads inside, the emergency room is full of people as Billy approaches the desk.   
The receptionist is a small black woman who smiles at him. “Name?”

“Mayfield, Max.” He says, knowing that hospitals run with the patients last name over the first.  
“Relation?” She questions.   
“Brother.” He answers. 

He watches as she shuffles through the clipboards before finding his sisters chart, she stands up gripping the board close to her chest. “Gimme a second, Suga’, I’ll get her doctor.” She walks down the hall towards the intensive care unit and returns a few minutes later with a doctor who is covered in blood, is that Max’s?

He offers his hand to Billy who takes it and shakes it. 

“Billy?” He questions. Billy nods, looking at the doctor expectantly. “I am Doctor Luke Moran. I’m going to tell you everything, because there isn’t a point in beating around the bush in regards to this, Billy.” He has a thick British accent, “It was difficult to see which parts of her were and were not broken.” 

Billy’s stomach churns at the thought. 

“When she came in, I wasn’t sure if she’d make it or not. Its only been a few hours but we’ve managed to stabilise her for now.” He looks over his clipboard, “At this moment, she’s in OR 7, we managed to get her in for emergency surgery.” He continues to explain. 

“And her injuries?” Billy asks slowly. 

The doctor sighs deeply, and looks over her chart, lifting a piece of paper.   
“From what we could see, broken tibia, crushed ribs, broken arm, internal bleeding, concussion, various contusions. Now, the reason she is in surgery is because shards from her ribs have perforated her right lung.” He lowers the board and looks at Billy. “Your sister is a fighter if I’ve ever seen one.” 

Billy felt as though the breath in his lungs completely evaporated, he thanks the doctor and turns to head into the waiting room and runs into Hopper. 

“Billy.” He says sternly. 

Billy doesn’t respond, just watches the chief of police. 

“I’m here about the accident, I have a few questions.” He offers to take Billy outside, knowing the teen boy smoked, so they could talk further. 

Billy lights up a cigarette and kicks a loose stone on the pavement with his boot. Hopper pulls out his pen and pad and begins to ask Billy questions. 

“She was coming back from the arcade, it started to rain so I drove out to pick her up and I got there just after the car hit her.” Billy lies, blowing out a thick plume of smoke.   
  
Hopper looks at his watch, the receptionist had mentioned Max came in as a trauma patient at 7:30, and it had already been 3 hours since. Hopper had learned, from how much Jane spent time with the Wheeler boy, that the arcade closed at around 6pm. 

“Don’t you guys live a 30 minute walk from the arcade?” He questions. “Why was she traveling home so late?” He questions, he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t good at poking holes in alibis. 

Billy shrugs, “guess you’ll have to ask her when they pull her ass out of surgery.” 

“Guess so.” He replies, taking a drag of his smoke. “You know, Joyce mentioned that she saw some bruising on Max, know anything about that?” 

Billy shrugs again, “I’m sure that if you check in with reception, they’ll tell you how many times Maxine comes in because of skateboarding.” 

“Right.” Hopper says. “I haven’t seen her skateboarding in a while.” 

“Funny that, she was skateboarding tonight when she was hit by a car.” Billy huffs. _He fucking hated cops_. 

Hop sighs deeply, finishing his cigarette. “Joyce is worried.” 

Billy glares at the chief, “the fuck are you implying? She’s a kid, Hopper, kids get bruises.”

“Not those kinds of bruises.” 

Billy tenses his jaw and looks out at the car park. 

“Look kid, you might seem like a hard ass piece of shit, but if something is happening at home, you can talk to someone about it.” Hopper had years of experience on this kid, so he knew that if something really was happening at the Hargrove house, he would do everything he could to figure it out. “I know stuff like that is hard, and you seem too prideful to admit it but-“ 

“This shit doesn’t concern you, can you just deal with that guy who hit my sister? That’s all that matter right now.” He pushes past Hopper and heads back inside. 

*****

Max wakes up slowly and pain shoots through her, she winces as she takes in her surroundings; the room is white, a small scattering of flowers adds a pop of colour to the room. She notices Billy sleeping in a chair by her bed.   
Was she in the hospital? _Why_ was she in the hospital? 

“Billy?” Her voice is hoarse. 

He opens his eyes and is immediately by her side. “Hey sleeping Beauty.” He teases. 

“Where am I?” She questions. The doctor had mentioned earlier to Billy that when Max came out of sedation, her mind would be foggy and she would be confused. He also mentioned temporary memory loss as an effect of the concussion. 

“Hawkins’ General.” He confirms. “You were in an accident.” 

She watches Billy slowly, “Accident?” 

“Yeah, you were hit by a car.” 

“How long have I been here?” She swallows hard. 

“A day or so, your Mom should be arriving soon, I called them and they caught the next flight back to Hawkins.” He says, he tries to offer her a comforting smile but she turns away from him.   
She tries to move again and groans in pain. 

“Want me to get the doctor?” He asks and she nods. 

He leaves the room to get the nurse and his sisters doctor and while he’s gone, Max tried to recollect her thoughts and remember what happened the night before. Everything was so hazy, so confusing.   
An accident? What kind of accident? She takes in her body and notes the casts on her limbs and the pain in her stomach. 

Billy returns with the nurse and doctor, the nurse makes quick work of checking Max’s vitals. “You’re lookin’ a lot better Max.” The nurse smiles, she hands the updated chart to Max’s doctor and they all note Susan and Neil hurrying into the room. 

“Max!” Susan practically screams, being careful not to injure her daughter further as she tries to hug the small girl. 

“What do you have for us, Doc?” Neil questions, standing by his wife. 

“The surgery went well with no complications at all.” He begins, he motions towards the IV drips. “At the moment, she’s currently on a small dosage of morphine to help with the pain as well as a nutrition drip.” He checks the chart. “When she was admitted, the triage team assessed she was malnourished, given its summer this isn’t _entirely_ uncommon.” He smiles at Max, “after all the only thing you kids survive on is rocket pops and soda.” 

Max bites her lip while Dr. Luke pushes his pen into his coat pocket and holds the clipboard in front of him. “There is, however, something I did want to discuss with you all.” His jaw clenches. “It is an awkward, complicated affair, given Max’s age.” 

“You said there was no complications.” Neil interjects. 

“Correct Mr Hargrove, no complications during the surgery, but the affair in which this particular conversation piece poses, is what is complicated.” He repeats. “During the surgery to repair Max’s punctured lung, we noticed bleeding in and around her lower intestine so we had to open her further and that’s when we saw it; we did remove it with little issue and needed to make a quick decision as leaving the mass in her womb would’ve caused sepsis had it gone untreated.” 

“Mass in her womb?” Susan is as white as a sheet. 

“Mr and Mrs Hargrove, during surgery it was discovered that your daughter was pregnant.” 

**** 

Billy is outside smoking a cigarette when he’s shoved roughly by his father. 

“What kind of fucking things were you letting her get into?” He hisses. 

Billy steadies himself, he was really in the shit now of course he had bought the pill for Max and would watch her closer than a psych ward orderly to make sure she was actually taking it. How the fuck was he supposed to know that shit wouldn’t work?   
“I watched her all Summer!” He butts out his cigarette. “She must’ve snuck out, what did you expect me to do? Put bars on the windows, lay nail studded wood on the grass outside? I’m sure that would’ve gone over well with Mommy.” 

Neil backhands Billy, glaring at his rebellious son. “Is this some kind of fucking game to you? She is fourteen years old! Fourteen!” Flecks of spit fly from his mouth. “What do you honestly think people are gonna say if she’d had the fucking kid? If word got out about our fourteen year old kid who had a fucking baby!? What do you honestly think would happen, huh?” Neil had been angry before, but this was just pure frustration. 

“It’s a good thing the situation was rectified then, huh.” Billy scoffs, fixing his hair. 

“Who?” His dad asks. 

Billy doesn’t hesitate. “If I knew do you really think he’d still be standing?” 

***** 

Max takes a small bite of her jello before putting it back onto the food tray, everything was all messed up and with everything going on the last thing she wanted to do was eat.   
This was the first moment since she’d woken up that she was actually alone, her mother had gone to their house to collect some clothes for Max to wear. She was still wearing the hospital clothes and her other clothes were probably in the hospital waste bin. 

The door to her room opens and Dr Luke enters with Hopper and another woman Max doesn’t recognise. She was a short blonde in a clean pantsuit who offered Max a warm smile before adjusting her glasses. 

“Hello Max, how are you feeling?” Dr Luke asks. Max sniffs but nods that she’s okay.   
“I know that our last conversation must have come as a shock to you, but I have someone here who would like to talk to you about a few things.”

“What things?” Max questions. “Why can’t she ask me when my Mom is here?”

Hopper interrupts the conversation so he can explain better than the doctor, who lets him take the reigns. “Max, the doctor told me what happened during your surgery about the uh,” He coughs uncomfortably. “The pregnancy, now, because you’re underage, we just need you to speak to someone so we can have a good understanding of what’s happened.” He’s very kind in the way he speaks. “This is Ashleigh Chatres, she’s a child psychologist here at the hospital and she just wants to have a talk with you about everything.” 

“Why?” Max asks again. “Everything is fine.” 

“I don’t think you understand the severity of this type of situation, sweetheart.” Jim says slowly. “We promise it wont be a long conversation, we just want to know why you, at your age, would be pregnant.” 

Max quietly resigns and lets them sit by her bed, Dr Luke leaves the room so that its just the three of them and Max watches Ashleigh carefully. 

“I heard you were in an accident.” She says, “that must’ve been scary.” 

“I don’t remember it.” Max answers with candour. She was uncomfortable with the entire situation, she didn’t want to talk about this. 

“If it would make you feel better, I can bring your brother in, you spent a lot of time with him over the summer, didn’t you?” Ashleigh continues. 

“I don’t want him in here.” Max says almost immediately. 

Ashleigh shoots a quick glance to Hop but turns back to Max. “Are you mad at him?” 

“No.” 

She leans closer to the smaller girl, “I guess we can just talk then.”   
Max turns her attention to the wall and tries to pretend the two aren’t in the room with her; if she just entertained them for a while, maybe they would leave her be. 

“Max, how did you spend your summer?” 

“I went to the arcade.” She says. “And to the Byers’ house.” 

“Is that Will?” Ashleigh asks, “Chief Hopper told me a lot about him, he also said a lot about your friends.” The psychologists voice is soft and dripped in empathy. “He also mentioned that Will’s Mom is worried about you.” 

Max turns to look at them, “she’s just confused.” Max says. “She doesn’t need to be worried about me because nothing is wrong.” 

“If nothing is wrong, then why were you outside so late yesterday?” Ashleigh pushes. 

“I told you I don’t remember.” 

“Your brother said you were at the arcade.” Hopper adds. “He said you were skating home.” 

“Skating?” She questions. Max looks down at her hands, her fingers look so tiny in the cast. “I don’t.” She begins but cuts herself off. 

“You don’t what, Max?” Ashleigh pushes. 

“Nothing.” She whispers, tears begin to well in her eyes. Her mind was still hazy from the morphine, but it was clear enough to know that she should shut up about her relationship with Billy. 

“Max, has something happened?” The young woman asks, her voice is barely a whisper. “I know that right now you must be really scared but Max, you’re fourteen and the doctors gave you an abortion during surgery.” 

“How do you know that?” Max wipes away a stray tear. “They don’t understand.” 

“Then help us understand.” Hopper is almost begging at this point, this poor girl looks like a porcelain doll that has been picked up and dropped, shattering all over the linoleum; she looks like someone tried to glue the pieces back together and failed.

“I cant.” She cries. She’s confused and sore and tired and she wants the entire world to turn to ash. 

“Why not?” 

“Stop!” Max cries, “You don’t get it!” 

She sobs into her hands as the psychologist continues to push her softly. “Listen to me, sweetheart, I think that there is something else going on here and I think that you are really scared and I might know why. Max, I think that someone has been hurting you and I think they have hurt you so so bad that its stopped hurting completely.” 

She wipes the back of her nose with her hand and yells at Ashleigh to shut up, “You aren’t smart, you don’t know anything!” 

“What happened to you?” 

The small teen swallows hard, leaning against her pillow, looking at Hop with total defeat reflecting on her face. “Do they really think I was pregnant?” She questions. 

Ashleigh nods, “I spoke with Dr Luke and he said the gestation of the foetus was 11 weeks.” 

She blinks tears away from her eyes and bites her inner cheek. “He said we were going to play a game and that if I won I would get $20.” 

Hopper feels like he’s on a roller coaster the moment before the big drop, his stomach churns and he puts his hand over his mouth; his worst fear was true. Someone had been hurting Maxine and they had broken her to the point of no return and the worst part is that nobody could see it.   
The gestation of the baby was 11 weeks and Max was in his cruiser three weeks ago. _Three weeks_. 

“What kind of game, Max?” Ashleigh adjusts her blazer, pushing a strand of hair behind her ear. 

“He tied my arms behind my back so that I couldn’t move, and told me that I had a minute to get out and when I couldn’t he-“ She looks away quickly the words stuck in her throat. 

“What did he do to you?” Hopper mumbles. “Did he threaten you?” 

When Max turns back, her bottom lip is quivering. “He said that if I told anybody or if I said anybody, he would cut my Mom into little pieces and he would make me eat her.” 

Hopper could throw up then and there but he stays put, waiting to her the rest of Max’s story. 

“And when he tied you up and when you couldn’t get out, what did he do?” Ashleigh had more than a lifetime worth of experience in this but it never made it any easier when it came to children. 

“He cut off my clothes with his switch blade, and he said ‘Now’s high time for you to learn a lesson.’” She balls the hospital sheets into her fist as she tries to calm her breathing. “And then he, he-“ She can’t say it, its too much. 

“I know that you’re scared and I know that it might be really hard to tell us what happened, but you can trust us; and we’ll make sure we keep your Mom safe too.” Ashleigh is supportive, knowing how hard it was for Max speak to them, but she needed to know why this small timid girl got pregnant. 

“He pushed himself inside of me and he had, he had sex with me.” She weeps as she continues to tell them exactly what had happened in her bedroom that afternoon, it seemed almost like a lifetime ago. “And then as he was about to finish he said ‘What do you think your Mommy would do if something ever grew in your tummy?’” She sniffs and swallows back more tears. “I swear I told him to stop, I begged him, please believe me, I didn’t want it.” 

“We believe you Max.” Ashleigh says, “No matter what, there is no circumstance on God’s green Earth that would warrant you or even lean towards anybody thinking you would have wanted this.” 

Max watches the two adults as they look at her with a mixture of pity and sadness. 

“How many times did it happen after that?” Hopper asks, jotting down the key points in his notepad. 

“I lost count.” Her voice can barely be heard. “It started just before Summer vacation.” 

“And was it just sex?” Ashleigh questions, avoiding the R word. She had learned in her time as a child psychologist that using the term ‘rape’ when dealing with victims of child sexual abuse, could be incredibly damaging to their psyche. 

Max shakes her head. “No. If I did something that made him angry, he would hit and kick me or break my stuff.” She breathes deeply. “I had rules that I had to follow and if I didn’t, I would get into trouble.” 

“Do you remember the rules?” 

“He made sure I never forgot them.” She begins to explain them all to the two adults, intentionally leaving out the rule about Lucas.

Hopper asks the question that’s been bothering him the entire time he’s been sitting in this room. “Did Billy know about any of this?” 

She doesn’t look at him as she takes in his question, she had come this far, was she willing to go a bit further?   
An internal conflict raged war inside of her as she tried to figure out the best course of action and the best thing to do. 

“Yes.” She answers. 

“If he knew, why didn’t he do anything to stop it?” 

Max’s answer is so profound that it silenced the entire room, you could have heard a pin drop and neither the psychologist or chief of Hawkins police could have expected the words to come out of her mouth. 

“Because he was the one that was doing it.”


	9. Only Angels Have Wings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the hazy blue you look so sweet  
> I almost forget what you'd do to me  
> If I let you  
> 'Cause even blood will run  
> Like the tears of a saint  
> With a face like that  
> You could get away with anything  
> And I know you know that

“ _He was the one doing it_.” Hop was reeling from the admittance of abuse from Max. He stands up slowly, the young girls eyes following him. 

“Max,” He rubs his fingers around the brim of his hat. “You are an incredibly brave young girl, and I want you to know that I won’t stop, until my last breath, to make sure you’re safe.”

He leaves the room, partly wanting Ashleigh to speak more with Max and more so needing a goddamn cigarette.

As he rounds the corner to the exit, he all but smacks straight into Joyce Byers.

“Hop! I heard what happened!” She whispers harshly.

“Cigarette. Now.” Is all he says.

Hopper explained it all to Joyce, from the beginning of Max coming into the ER, to Max finally admitting that Billy was the one hurting her. He wasn’t surprised to see the smaller woman was crying quite harshly into her hands.

“Does her Mom know?” She questions.

Hopper shakes his head. “At this point, the only people who know, are you, myself and her psychologist.”

Joyce wipes her eyes, “Hop I shouldn’t have let her go home. I should’ve made her stay longer.”

“This isn’t your fault Joyce, nobody knew what was happening; maybe it was because adults can be ignorant, but nobody knew. She was in my cruiser three weeks ago and I didn’t even know what was happening.” He admits, guilt weighing heavy on him.

Joyce takes a long drag of her lucky strike, and watches Hop. “How bad was it?”

He pauses for a moment before looking away from the mother of two, “She went in for surgery so they could stop the internal bleeding. When they opened her up, the found a baby.”

She takes in a sharp breath and almost vomits up her breakfast.

“They performed an emergency removal of the foetus; closed her back up and have her sitting in one of the rooms.” He wipes a stray tear from his eye.

Chief Hopper was no doubt a man if you’d ever seen one; but the difficulty of this particular situation was that he had also been a father.

When Sarah was born, he swore that he would do everything in his mortal power to protect her; but even a loving father can’t keep the sickness away.

So upon hearing of Max’s situation, his heart damn near shattered.

“What are we gonna do?” Joyce asks softly.

“I’m gonna make sure that Hargrove boy rots in a prison cell for the rest of his days.”

*****

He wasn’t as young as he used to be, but being on the force for a number of decades meant her knew his way around a perp; all the right things to say to drag them down to the station so they’d be none the wiser when he booked them.

“Hey kid.” He says, approaching the Hargrove boy who is currently watching Max through the window of her hospital room. “We need you at the station.”

“What for?” He questions, not taking his eyes off of his sister.

“We’re gonna charge that guy that hit her, we just need your statement to really get him.” Hop lies.

“Can’t we do it here?” He finally looks at him.

“Love to, but unfortunately all the important documents are downtown, so we have to go there. We’ll be in and out as quick as possible.” He tries to keep a steady voice. It had only been hours since Max had told both himself and the psychologist what he’d been doing to her.   
Hop was practically vibrating with his rage he was trying to hold in. 

Billy pauses, but finally agrees and opens the door to Max’s room and goes in quickly, Jim knew not to hover in case the kid put two and two together.

He watches them as Billy explains what’s gonna happen and he can finally see it; Max’s fear of her step brother. She’s trying to keep it cool and collected, but he can see how frightened she as when Billy leans in close and whispers something in her ear before leaving.

As they walk out into the car park, Hop opens the cruiser door for Billy more so out of habit than anything and waits for him to climb in before following suit and getting in the drivers side, starting up the engine and pulling out of the car park of Hawkins General.

He’d never been so excited to arrest someone as he was right now.

*****

To say Billy was surprised was an understatement when Hop pulled the kids hands behind his back the minute he stepped out of the cruiser. He did his best to read the boy his Miranda Rights while he struggled and cussed.

“You have the right to a lawyer, if you cannot afford a lawyer one will be app-“

“Fuck off, Officer Pig.” Billy spits, still struggling as he’s hauled into the police station and thrown into the closest available cell.

Hop takes the cuffs off of him and looks him in the eye, he knew the kid was trouble; but to do what he’d done to Maxine was entirely unfathomable.

“She told us what you did.” He hisses in an almost deadly tone.

“Oh?” Billy plays none the wiser. “And what might that be Officer Friendly?”

“Don’t act dumb with me, you little shit. All I need is your confession, and you’ll be going away for a long time. Long enough for her to start her life somewhere else. Far from Hawkins, far from you.”

Billy starts laughing and for a second Hop thinks the kids totally looney.

“No matter what you do, even if you lock me up for the rest of my life, I will still find her. Nobody, not you, not even God himself can keep me from my sister.”

Hopper is taken aback, but only slightly. This kid was something else entirely, he turns away from Billy and walks over to the desk; explaining to the young deputy that Billy was not allowed out for anything, Hopper swarms to his office and slams the door behind him.

Billy stares through the bars of his holding cell, what the fuck was happening?

All he knew was that bitch Maxine had told Officer Pig about their soirées and now Billy was knee deep in pig shit.

“Fuckin’ whore.” Billy spits, walking around the holding cell.

There was a metal toilet against the adjacent wall, a bed and small wash sink. Above the toilet, quite close to the roof, was a window that was barred as well. “Oi.” He calls out to the young deputy who is pouring over case files and effectively ignores Billy.

The young Hargrove boy reaches into his back pocket for his smokes and lights one, lying on the hard bed. “Fuck you, Max.” He chuckles to himself.

*****

After Billy had left, Max watched as people came in and out of her room.

Nurses, her Mom, Ashliegh the psychologist and at one point, her friends.

“Heard you were in an accident.” Will is the first of the party to speak, his eyes darting over Max and her injuries. “Mom said you were going to be okay but you got pretty hurt.”

Max nods, “Yeah, I guess.” She tries to push a smile for her friends, she was exhausted having people worrying about her.

“What happened?” Mike asks.

Max looks at Lucas before quickly averting hergaze, if Billy was here- she shakes the thought from her head.

“I don’t really remember. Billy said I was hit by a car coming back from the arcade.”

“Are you gonna be okay?” Her friends ask and she nods.

She wasn’t sure if she was going to be okay or not, because she wasn’t entirely sure what okay looked like anymore.

She wasn’t sure who Max was anymore.

“Well when you get out, maybe Mike and I will finally beat you in dig dug now you gotta a handicap.” Dustin tried to make his friend smile, and he succeeds, if only for a moment.

They all talk for a little while longer before Max’s nurse comes in and ushers them out; they all shout their goodbyes to her and she laughs softly as she listens to them.

Her laughter soon turns to crying as the realisation suddenly hits her; if her friends knew what really happened, they would drop her quicker than a sack of shit.

She wipes her eyes with her uninjured hand and stares at the wall of her hospital room.

What was she supposed to do? She was stuck between a rock and a hard place.

When Billy got back from the station, he would surely know what Max had done and once Billy knew, he would rain pure hell fire down on Max.

Her breathing starts to pick up as she thinks about what he’d do to her, if he would go so far as to almost kill her in the woods by their house, nothing would stop him from killing her in her hospital bed.

She’s in a panic as she thinks about all of the things that might happen if Billy found out, she’s subdued slightly when a nurse comes in and asks if Max needed anything and that’s when the idea snowballs into a plan.

“Uhm, I’m kinda bored, do you have any arts and crafts?” She asks.

The nurse replies sweetly to the young girl, “I’m sure I could find something for you, darlin’.” As she turns away, Max calls out to her to bring her something that would be useful to cut nice edges with.

After a short while, the nurse returns with a small basket of things; Max notes the glue, a pair of scissors, paper, some magazines from the waiting room and - there it is - she picks it out of the basket and holds it in her hand, staring at it momentarily.

Her bottom lip quivers, but she puts the sadness to bed and pushes the handle so the blade is exposed. She’d only ever used a box cutter once, and it was just after they’d moved to Hawkin’s and Neil had wanted her to clear out the moving boxes from the garage.

She positions it as best as she can with her cast and looks at the door quickly, nobody seemed to be around her room for the time being so she took the opportunity to press the blade into her wrist and, with all the strength she could muster, cut her wrist vertically; her breathing picked up as she opened her skin like blossoming flowers in the spring and as the blood began to pool she whimpered ever so slightly.

She puts the box cutter back in the box, it was clear she had cut exponentially deep by how much blood was pouring out; the overall wound was probably three inches long, Max closes her eyes and rolls her head to the side so she doesn’t have to watch her life pool on the sheets of her hospital bed.

She sniffs as she stares at the wall, her arm was tingling and she knew it was from blood loss; her head was beginning to feel faint and she wondered if this was it. Dying.

Death didn’t hurt, and Max had become so overbearingly used to pain. She wonders how long it would take for her to slip under the waves when she hears the clatter of objects hitting the linoleum floor before she’s swept under.

*****

She opens her eyes slowly and watches as a nurse carefully stitches Max’s skin back together. She can’t feel anything while the nurses pulls the nylon thread through her skin; the young woman catches Max’s eye and offers her a smile.

“Gave me a bit of a fright.” The nurse says softly. “Is that why you asked me for the arts and crafts equipment?”

Max doesn’t answer, just keeps her eyes on the nurse who is now smoothing gauze over her wrist and taping it down.

“Life has not been kind to you these past few months has it, sweetheart?” The nurse looks at Max, who was getting tired of telling people how she feels and what is going on inside her head.

“I’m tired, can you please go.” She mumbles.

The nurse sighs, watching the young girl retreat into herself. “You know, I wasn’t born in Hawkins, I was actually born in Saint Louis. I moved here when I got my nursing degree; at least that’s what I tell people. Really, I came here to get away.” The nurse notices the way Max scopes her out, similarly to a wild animal at the sight of food in an unfamiliar hand. “I was running away, you could probably say.”

Max finally bites. “From what?”

“My Daddy would come home smelling of liquor most nights, and sometimes when he was really drunk, he’d think I was my Mother.”

Max already knows where this story is going, she stays quiet as the nurse continues.

“When I finally left, I went to a college far away because I thought that would be the best place for me to live. In a school on the other side of the country. But I realised, if my Daddy ever came lookin’ for me, I could hide right under his nose. So I tried to find places close to home, but not close enough that I’d be noticed, so I came to Hawkins.” She offers Max a warm smile reminiscent of a Sunday morning when life was good.

“When you start to heal, and I mean heal on the inside, people are gonna start thinking you’re crazy; but we aren’t crazy sweet girl, we’re just a little bit broken.”

She packs up the medical kit and stands up, she gives Max’s hand a small squeeze as she moves to head out the door.

“I want you to remember one thing, Max, that the world is always so much greener after the storm.”

*****

She was finally released from Hawkins general after three days, after a number of physical and psychologist tests proved she would be right to leave.

Max’s entire life had been packed into a single suitcase and sat currently inside the car of Joyce Byers’.

Hop had tried his best to explain to the young girl, while she screamed and hurled things around her room, that she would be staying with Joyce for the time being while child services performed a few wellness checks on her parents and in the home.

Her psychologist explained to Hop that the hostility would be normal; Max was experiencing a plethora of different emotions that she was having difficulty regulating, so she would be prone to outbursts and emotions she wouldn’t be able to understand entirely.

Max sits silently in the backseat watching the scenery blur together while Joyce drove slowly to her house, checking the rear view mirror constantly, almost scared Max would suddenly disappear.

Max did not want to be in this car in the slightest, if Joyce hadn’t said anything, she wouldn’t have been running from Billy that night.

If Joyce had minded her fucking business everything would’ve been okay.

Except it wouldn’t have been, the other part of Max is more rational, the part that is telling her that if Joyce hadn’t said anything, if no one had been notified, Billy would never have stopped. 

Max would have given birth, she would’ve hung herself from the curtain rod in her room.

Her world had become an overflowing sink of ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’.

But there was only one that really mattered; if Billy got out of holding, she’d be done for.

The car rolls up the drive way that leads to the rather derelict home of the Byers residence and Max gets out of the car slowly, making sure to grab her bag.

She walks inside and Joyce leads her down to the basement where she’d already set up a cot with a yoga mat on it; the biggest effort to make Maxine comfortable.

Max drops her bag and Joyce closes the door behind her, trying to give the girl privacy.

*****

Max sits in the kitchen of the Byers’ home, Will and Jonathan had vacated the premises to look at the DnD campaigns that just came in at the game store in town. 

She pushes her cereal around the bowl and pays no mind to Joyce who sits by her.

“How was your first night?” The Byers’ Mother is trying to make idle conversation; Hop had warned her of Max’s hostility.

Max makes an attempt to eat the food, not wanting to speak to Joyce; Max didn’t even want to be here, just wanted to go home.

“Maybe we could go to the store today? We could even go shopping at store court?”

“I’m still sore.” Max mumbles, the truth was that she didn’t want to be out in public. Half the town had already heard the story of the Mayfield girl run down on Cherry Lane, and small towns are plagued with intrigue of drama.

“We could go when you’re feeling better?”

Max had to give it to her, she was trying - but this woman had flipped Max’s entire life on its head.

“Max, I can understand that-“

“Why can’t I go home? Billy isn’t there, so why am I stuck here?” She questions.

“They need to perform extensive welfare checks, honey.” She wasn’t about to lie to the poor girl. “They aren’t sure why your parents left you alone, and planning to for the whole Summer.”

“You’re acting like it isn’t the 80’s! Kids are always left alone.” Max pushes.

“Most kids aren’t left alone with someone like Billy.” Joyce shoots back.

There’s silence for a moment and Joyce attempts to apologise.

“What exactly are you sorry for?” Max asks. “Are you sorry for sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong? Or are you sorry I’m in this shithole? Or maybe you’re sorry for ruining my fucking life!” Anger fills her like a jug overflowing with water.

“Sweetheart, you can throw as many punches as you need to, I’ll take every blow. Yes, it was not my place to tell Hop what I saw, but I wasn’t about to let you stay there.” She lights a cigarette and takes a drag, watching the Mayfield girl huff. “I know your life is a royal shit show right now, and I know Billy built you up to shatter you, but I am not going to apologise for saving you.”

“Saving me?! SAVING ME!? You ruined my fucking life!” She screams. 

“What life did you have in that house, Max? You can’t tell me that living with Billy-“ The younger girl cuts Joyce off.

“Billy wasn’t that bad! He did things that hurt but that’s because I misbehaved, and children who misbehave have to be punished.” She’s on her feet now and it’s breaking Joyce’s heart to see how much pain could be inside of a body this small.

Joyce invades Max’s space, the girl in turn steps back.

“Billy says if I wasn’t so bad, if I just hadn’t kept messing up, he wouldn’t have to hurt me so bad.” She chokes back tears. “And he wasn’t always bad! He gave me things.”

“Max what could he possibly have given you to make any of this okay?”

“He took me to the movies, let me sit by him, let me stay here.” She whispers.

This poor, damaged girl. “Sweet, sweet child. Those aren’t gifts you earn, that is basic human decency. Anything Billy made you work for should have been given to you free of charge.” Joyce walks to her slowly, like approaching a wild animal, she engulfs Max in a hug only a Mother knows how to give.

The teenager fights, furiously at first, screaming for Joyce to let her go but the older woman doesn’t let up.

She just holds Max until her hitting and screaming is reduced to muddled sobs, her body vibrating as she lets it all out.

All of her pain, everything, it all pours out of her in waves.

Joyce had seen this before, she was old enough to know what grief looked like. She knew that Max was grieving for herself. For who she lost, for what was taken from her. Joyce holds her as tight as she possibly can while Max pours out of her all of the ugliness Billy had been periodically planting for months.

And even though no one had truly died, grief hung thick in the air and both women knew, the recovery would not be easy.

*****

The sun belts down on the front porch of the Byers’ home and Max takes tentative attention to her bomb pop to make sure the sticky residue doesn’t run down over her hand and tiny wrist.

The weeks had passed by almost effortlessly, despite the occasional hiccups; Max knew the calm was always before the storm and Joyce would be taking her to the police station that afternoon so she could provide a more in depth statement about her life with Billy.

Will is helping Jon with his car, it really was a beautiful day and Joyce is hanging the washing out. Max doesn’t usually spend time outside in the sun, she was cursed with pale skin and always looked like a lobster after a trip in the Summer heat but right now, Max didn’t mind the idea of her skin turning Nantucket red.

“Max, did you put sunscreen on?” Joyce asks, holding the empty wicker basket.

It had been a long time since anyone had asked her that, she takes the popsicle from her mouth and shakes her head. “No, but I’m not gonna be out here long.” She answers.

Joyce accepts her answer and heads back inside, reminding Max not to be outside for too long.

She leans back further on the porch, stretching out her limbs, she was wearing a loose tank top that exposed a large majority of her lower abdomen, her bandage from surgery peeking out, and short jeans that hit mid-thigh.

If Billy had seen what she was wearing he would have fucked her then beat her; in no particular order.

Billy still plagued her mind every waking second of the day, but she wasn’t about to tell anyone about it. Joyce said she was making strides but Ashleigh said she needed to be careful, it was easy to take one step forward and just as easier to take a million steps backward.

Max finishes her bomb pop and throws the stick in the bin before heading inside, she meets Joyce in the landing just as she’s hanging up the phone.

“Everything okay?” Max asks.

Joyce throws her a warm smile and nods. “That was Hopper, he wants to see if we can come in now.”

Max looks to the ground, her stomach swarming with a hurricane of butterflies. She thinks about what will happen when she gets to the police department. “I need to get dressed.”

*****

Sometimes, there’s things in this world that can make you feel so small, so tiny.

Max wondered if Hawkins’ Police Department always loomed this large.

Joyce reaches over and gives her hand a reassuring squeeze but it does nothing to calm the storm inside of her body.

“Hopper promised to take it slowly.” Joyce murmurs, and this gives her a little strength to climb out of the car.

The cool air hits them like an avalanche as they open the entrance doors, but it was a welcomed cold; Hawkins was getting hot.

They walk through to reception and the nice girl behind the desk leads them into the bull pen and that’s when Max sees him.

His eyes are wild before they land on her.

_His girl_.

Max stops dead in her tracks.

He was scruffy, a beard starting to grow on his usually clean shaven face.

Billy was similar, in a sense, to a caged lion. Max was his meal he hadn’t devoured in weeks.   
He all but launches at the bars of the holding cell. 

“Max! Maaaax!” His voice is gruff, agitated, laced with need.

She’s frozen in place as Hop rushes over to her and Joyce, shouting for Billy to shut up.

“Max! You do anything! You say anything and everyone knows! Whose gonna want you then? Huh? That fucking nigger Sinclair?! Max! You listen to me you fucking bitch!” He’s still yelling even after Hopper closes the door.

Max is trembling like a leaf while Hop apologised to her, the receptionist was supposed to let Hop know they were here so Billy could be moved to an interview room for the duration of Max’s statement.

“He seems so angry.” Max whispers.

“He hasn’t had a cigarette since he was detained, so I don’t imagine he’s too calm.” Jim sits at his desk, grabbing a thick notepad from his desk.

“Why is he still in holding?” Joyce enquires. “It’s been three weeks?”

“The law has loopholes, Joyce.” He says, fiddling with a tape recorder. “Max, all I need you to do is tell me everything that happened. Everything that you can remember.” He sets the recorder on the table and tells Max that all she has to do is explain it all, start to finish. “It’s okay if at some point you need a break, just as long as you’re giving all the information you can.” Hopper is kind when he speaks to Max, observing her closely.

Maxes stares the tape recorder down like it’s a cobra about to strike, Hop clicks ‘record’ and begins the interview.

“The date is August 14th 1984, time is 3:19PM, Tuesday.” He looks at the two women in front of him. “Currently speaking with the victim Maxine Mayfield, age 14. Joyce Byers will be observing.”

_Victim_.

The word is like knives, Max didn’t want to be a victim; she didn’t want to be weak.

“We will be documenting Miss Mayfield’s account of abuse inflicted by Billy Hargrove aged 18. Abuse was first discovered on July 8th 1984. Mr Hargrove has been detained in holding since this date inclusive of today’s date.”

Max was surprised by the formality of it all. She didn’t realise that it would all sound so... intense.

“What’s gonna happen?” Max asks. “If we go through with this, will people know?”

“ _Whose gonna want you then?_ ” Billy’s voice smashes through her skull.

Maybe Billy was right, if Max told people, no one would want her. She would be damaged goods.

“ _You can’t shit without the half of Hawkins knowing about it_.” She recalls Neil’s hatred for the small town when they first moved in, and he was right.

Hopper clasps his hands together, “With these types of cases, and with the crimes he’s committed, Billy will need to stand before a jury of his peers. By then, it does become a matter of public record.”

“I want to know what he’s being charged with.”

“It’s quite an extensive list.”

“I want to know.” Max tries to swallow the lump in her throat but it won’t budge.

She watches Hop pull a thick file from the corner of his desk and opens it, Max catches a glimpse of Billy’s mugshot, Hop lifts a sheet and begins listing off what Billy would be charged with.

“Statutory rape, child sexual abuse, aggravated sexual assault, grievous bodily harm, prescribed sexual offence, and coercive control.”

Max bites the inside of her cheek and keeps her focus on the tape recorder. “How long will he be in prison?”

Hopper puts the file down and answers, “If we manage to pin him for everything, he would be looking at 42 years minimum.”

“Oh.”

“There’s also another thing.” Hopper adds. “We reviewed the reports from the Department of Child and Family Services, and unfortunately, we’ll be charging your parents with child endangerment and negligence.”

“But she’s my Mom!” Max spits.

“I can understand how scary this is, and nobody wants to get their Mom in trouble, but both her and your step father were gone, and planning to be gone, for the entirety of the Summer.”

Max is stunned. “They left us with $400?” She couldn’t comprehend. “Everyone’s parents leave them alone, it’s 1984!” She was suddenly back in Joyce‘s kitchen.

“Max, there is a difference between leaving your child alone, and letting your child stay in a household with an abusive older individual.” He says.

“But-“

“Max, we know why your family left California.” You could drop a pin in Jim Hopper’s office and it would sound like glass shattering. “Families don’t leave California for Hawkins’ Indiana for fun.”

Max is silent, Hop was right, they left California for a reason.

“Max, you’re a sweet kid, but don’t feel as though you’re doing a bad thing.” He picks Billy’s file up and drops it for added affect. “He didn’t build up a record this big in Hawkins’ alone.”

Her head is full and all she wants to do is turn to ash, she thinks about what would happen if she did go through with all of this.

“Will I be the one pressing charges?”

Hopper nods, “When you explain everything and give your statement, it’ll solidify the charges we already have against him and then from there, it’s up to the jury to decided if he’s guilty or not.”

Max lays out all of the consequences in her mind. She has two options:

  1. _Go through with it all._
  2. _Don’t._



Max had learned very early on in life that adults do not listen to kids, she knew that Hopper and Joyce would do whatever they could to help her, but what was to say the jury would do the same?

She knew that Billy was inherently bad but everyone in the world was bad.

Neil was bad because he used his fists to communicate.

Her mother was bad because she was complacent.

Hell, she’d even head the story of Hoppers’ dismissive nature when Joyce reported Will as missing two years prior.

And Max was bad because she misbehaved, if she had been better, good, then these things wouldn’t have happened to her.

She looks at Jim, he’s expecting her to speak, to say something, to damn Billy Hargrove to death.

“How do I start?” Max asks.

“We’ll start with your full name, if that’s okay.” Hopper answers. “And your date of birth.”

“My name is Maxine Mayfield, but I prefer Max. I was born on June 23rd 1971.” She says.

“And do you know why you’re here?” Jim asks, scribbling on his notepad.

“Yes.” It’s a simplistic response.

“You were admitted to Hawkins General Hospital at 5:42PM on the 4th of August 1984 which was a,” He quickly checks his calendar, “Saturday. Can you please explain why you were admitted?”

Max swallows but answers. “I was hit by a car. I was in the middle of the street when the car hit me.”

“Why would you be in the middle of the road?”

“I was.” She glances at her hands. “August 4th was a Saturday?”

“Yes.”

“Saturdays I’m at the arcade. I was riding my skateboard home but because of the rain, the sidewalks were wet; too wet for skating, so I was on the road.”

Hop stops writing, and stares at her. “The arcade?”

The young girl nods.

Hopper turns the tape recorder off, “What are you doing kid?”

“I want to drop the charges against Billy.”

*****

He holds the stations phone close to his ear. “Yeah, the whole lot. She even tried lying in the statement.”

“It sounds as though she’s trauma bonded.” Ashleigh says. She reaches for her copy of the DSM-III.

“What the fuck is that?” This stuff confused the cop beyond belief.

“You said Joyce told you Max said Billy wasn’t always bad.” Ashleigh pours over the table of contents.

His eyes flick to his office where Joyce and Max were, hoping the Mother was talking some sense into the girl. “Yeah. She said Billy gave her things. Presents, let her do things.”

Ashleigh finds what she’s looking for and opens it up.

“That boy has his claws in her good.” Hopper grunts through the phone.

“When a victim is faced with an abuser whose feelings change from abusive to love, it’s common for them to bond. The victim can feel such an intense loyalty to their abuser.” She reads through the chapter in the DSM-III. “During our sessions, Max often spoke about nights Billy would come home drunk and apologise to her, shower her with love, give her money. Right after her raped her for the first time, he still gave her the $20 he promised her.”

“Fucking Christ. So what do we do?” He already knew the answer, he just wasn’t ready to accept it.

Billy Hargrove was a free man.

*****

Billy’s cock was almost rock hard at the sight of Hopper unlocking the cell door.

He steps out and shoots the chief of police his signature grin before heading towards reception to collect his belongings. “I really enjoyed the stay, fellas, wouldn’t give it 5 stars.” Billy pushes his cigarettes into his pocket and heads outside.

Neil was picking him up, and Billy was in no way excited, he lights a cigarette and waits for his Dad. He takes a drag, listening as the front door opens, Jim is by his side exhaling a puff of smoke.

“You can stand there and pretend that you won, but you haven’t.” Had Hopper been 25 years younger, he wouldn’t decked this son of a bitch right then and there.

Billy looks around, “Last I noticed, Officer Friendly, I’m not in a cell anymore.” He had to hand it to Max, she got him into this shit hole but she worked hard to get him out of it.

“We’ll get you back in there soon enough.” Hopper quips.

Neil’s car rolls onto the black top of Hawkins P.D and Billy climbs into the passenger side, waving goodbye. He flicks the cigarette but out the window; hoping silently that Hop wasn’t telling the truth.

His dad is silent the whole drive up to Cherry Lane and it slightly unsettled Billy because his Dad was only quiet when he was angry. As they stop at the cusp of the driveway, Neil turns the engine off but neither boys get out of the car.

“She’s inside, in her room.” Neil’s eyes stay on the garage door. “I don’t care if you did what they say you did. I don’t care if you fucked her half brain dead, but right now she does not exist to you. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Get in the house.”

Billy felt like it had been years since he’d been in the house, he heads through the door kicking his boots off. He hadn’t really been here since Max’s accident.

It had been a few days since he’d since his little sister at the police station, but he wasn’t concerned that he wasn’t allowed to see her for the time being. It would only be a matter of time before their parents fell back into old habits and Summer was close to ending.

Who was gonna stop him from getting her at school?

He pushes his bedroom door open and heads inside. Everything around him was coated in Max, he hadn’t changed the sheets; collapsing on the bed he inhales deeply and takes in the intoxicating smell of Max, stale sex and the sweet scent of the both of them together.

All he had to do was wait, he was a patient guy and he just had to stay on the straight and narrow.

When the time came, Max was gonna fucking get it. He hadn’t done nothing in his cell, the time was spent well thinking of the different things he was going to do to her; and they weren’t pretty.

The distance from his bedroom to hers was 7 steps. He had counted once to see; 7 steps, it didn’t seem like much but right now, 7 steps seemed like the distance of the Grand Canyon.

He closes his door and turns his stereo on, filing through his cassettes. He found the Mötley tape a girl in California had gifted him back in ‘82. The song that plays is fitting because he knows that Max can hear it.

He hopes the guitar vibrates through her body when the familiar sounds of Too Fast For Love blasts through his rooms as he reaches for his weights; now that he couldn’t stuff Max with his cock, he had to find another way to let out his frustration.

_She’s a streamline Queen._

_On a sex craved movie screen._

_Say it again_

_She’ll use her time up_

_Have nothing to show_

_Well mark my words_

_Do you remember?_

_Well I remember._

*****

Max pulls her pillow over her head to block out the song; she knew why Billy was playing. She knew he was angry for what she’d done, and the fact that he spent almost a month in holding.

It seemed as though Max was making everyone angry. Or disappointing them.

When she had decided to drop the charges against Billy, she could see the disappointment in Joyce’s eyes.

“Sweetie, don’t make a decision you are going to regret.” Joyce was trying to be sympathetic but Max could hear the strain in her voice. She knew Joyce really wanted to say ‘what the fuck are you doing?’

“Billy and I never had a chance, him more less than me but if I do this, if I go through with it all, then I lose even more footing.” Max is honest. “When we lived in California, I was always Billy’s sister. Always Billy’s thing. Moving to Hawkins, I was finally just Max; yes people still knew Billy was crazy, but at least they didn’t think I was his.”

Joyce is shocked by Max’s sudden candour but she sits patiently.

“I know that he should rot for what he did to me but if people found out, I wouldn’t be me anymore.” She had struggled to be something else, something that wasn’t an extension of Billy. “I don’t want you to think I’m weak or that I forgive him. I don’t. Everything in my head is all hazy, and I want to do whatever it will take to make my life okay.” She wipes a stray tear from her face. “And if that means keeping Billy here, then that’s what will happen.”

Max opens her bedroom door and peaks out, Billy’s door was closed and Max takes the opportunity to duck down the hallway and into the kitchen.

Ashleigh advised Susan, when Max was back in her care, that Max needed stability. The best way to make Max’s re-transition into the house easier would be to act as though nothing had changed. It would be the best way to help her on the road to normalcy.

“Mom?”

Susan is in the kitchen, preparing dinner; Neil has ducked out to Starcourt for a few things. Max wondered if it was so he didn’t have to stay in the house with his family.

“Yes, hon?” She’s peeling potatoes in the sink.

“Do you need help with dinner?” She grabs the hem of her sweater.

“I’m almost done, Maxine, but I’d love a chat.” She smiles at her daughter who sits at the kitchen bar. “How are you feeling?” She asks, placing a potato in the pot.

“I’m okay, don’t forget my stitches get taken out next week.”

Susan nods, “I know. It’s on the calendar.”

Max wasn’t sure when her relationship with her mother peaked but she just didn’t want it to be so hard to talk to her Mom. “Can I ask you something?”

“Hm?”

“Are you mad at me?”

Susan’s body tightens and she pauses what she’s doing. She puts the peeler on the sink and turns to her daughter. 

“When I first fell pregnant with you in 1970, I was so frightened.” She dries her hands with a tea towel. “I was 19 and had only come out of high school. When I told your father, he was overjoyed. But I was so unsure.”

Her mother never spoke much about her pregnancy so Max was slightly stunned.

“All of the books in the library will try and tell you that pregnancy is simplistic, but it wasn’t. You were certainly restless, you still are.” Mrs Hargrove laughs at the memory. “Your father always said that I was overreacting but I was so worried about how you would turn out. The pregnancy was difficult but your birth was one million times worse.”

Max wasn’t sure where her mother was going with all this but she was listening closely.

“I went into labour at 11am June 22nd and you were born at 3pm June 23rd. The nurses gave you to me, swaddled in cloth and when I held you for the first time, all of the pain, all of the fear and uncertainty, all of it just washed away. It didn’t exist anymore and it was as though the only people in the world were you and I.” Susan wipes a tear away and looks at her daughter. “You were so tiny and I promised myself I would protect you from everything in this world, no matter what but I failed. Max I really let you down and I am sorry.”

“You didn’t let me down.” Max is crying with her mother.

“I did, Max. I really did. I was so worried about trying to protect you from the world but I didn’t protect you from the one thing in this world I was so sure about. I couldn’t protect you from yourself.”

The wind is practically knocked out of her lungs, she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “I don’t, what are you saying?” Max is confused, her mother turns back to peel the remaining potatoes.

“I know you took the divorce hard and I know you felt unsettled having to move to a new town; and I mean, with how busy Neil and I have been lately, the attention at home has been practically non-existent. But I had no idea the extent you would go to vie for our attention, Maxine.” Susan says calmly, her emotions about Max’s birth long gone. “I just feel so sorry for all of your dupes, the ones who believed you.”

Max shudders at the thought, “Mom I didn’t make anything up, all of it happened.”

“Enough, Max.” Susan’s voice doesn’t rise above its current octave. “When we sit at the table to have dinner, you will apologise to Neil for the fuss you caused but most importantly to Billy for putting him through so much.”

Max’s heart is in her mouth, she tried to swallow it back down but the whole world around her is hazy, she can’t breathe, how do you breathe? Is it two in, one out? She balls her fists in her sweater and looks at her mother. “Mom, please.”

“If you want to party, I can buy you little pills from the drug store, it’s no problem. Believe me, I grew up during the 60’s, everyone was raunchy then and the 70’s were just as bad. But kids these days are out all hours of the night; Max if you want to put yourself in a position with boys all I ask is you do it safely.” Her Mother sweeps everything under the rug with such precision. “I’m just glad they did that abortion. A mother at 14, my goodness.”

Max realised in that very moment, the same way a gazelle realises it is about to die, that there was nobody in this house that would be able to protect her from the lion in the room just off the hallway.

***** 

The silence at the dinner table is deafening. Max pushes her food around her plate and focuses more on the way the gravy soaks into the mashed potato than she does anything else.

“This chicken is delicious, honey.” Neil compliments his wife, who gushes over the new butcher store that opened on Main Street a few weeks prior.

“She’s so lovely, I don’t know how she can stay so pretty while doing a mans job.” She crows about the owner of the store, Mrs Schodel.

“I’m surprised she even has a job, I guess there’s so many of those working women now.” Neil sighs, stuffing some chicken into his mouth.

Max doesn’t look up, Billy was sitting across from her and she could feel the way his gaze burned a whole right through her skull.

“Not hungry, Maxine?” She looks at her Mom, whose smile is so sweet it would taste like apple pie. “The doctor did say you were malnourished. Please try and eat, darling.”

Max scoops up some potatoes and tries to eat it, she wasn’t sure why she was suddenly having issues with food again, she had no problem eating at the Byers’ house.

“Good girl.” Her mother takes a sip of her wine, Max wonders if she’d taken her little yellow pills with before hand. Her mother was a dainty little thing and she was sure if you shook her hard enough, she’d rattle like a pill bottle. “Don’t you have something to say?”

Max sets her fork down, she was strong, she was. She was a fortress. She was the Great Wall of China. She was fearless. She could say it. She could. She would will herself to say it. She was Mad Fucking Max. She could do anything.

She turns to Neil first, opens her mouth and lets out a steady breath. “I want to apologise for causing such a fuss and for the fact you and Mom had to come home early from your trip. I’m sorry that I cause this much trouble.”

“Well gee, I really do appreciate your apology Max, it means a lot.” Neil says, he’s smug. It shows all over his face.

_This fuck head,_ Max thinks _. What a fucking stooge_.

She turns to Billy next, this one was gonna be harder, so much harder. She studies his face, his wearing that shit eating grin that he only wears when he knows he’s gotten away with something.

His long curly hair is pushed behind his ears and he shaved before dinner, saving his moustache that never seemed to come off his face.

She focuses on a crack in the wall just behind his left ear and switches off completely.

“I’m sorry for lying about you and for telling people things that weren’t true.” She says as sincerely as she can.

“I really appreciate that Max.” Billy says. “Really, I do. I understand it as well, your Mom said you had a real problem with lying when you were younger. But it’s okay, I forgive you.”

With the apologies out of the way, Max turns back to her dinner and tries her best to eat. She’s reminded of the time at the Byers’ when Joyce had accidentally burned the chicken and had decided then and there that they would have iHop for dinner.

Max wishes she was having iHop for dinner.

*****

Max felt like her bedroom was a prison cell, a personalised hospital room. She was too exhausted to cry or to let out her frustration, so she sits on her bed staring at nothing. Susan has cleaned her daughters room before DCFs visit, she wonders who took the rules off the wall.

Max can still see the holes where Billy had initially nailed the sheet of rules to the wall.

Her jewellery box sits in the middle of her dresser, she grabs it and opens it, the poem Billy have her is still in there, but so is something else, yellow paper folded messily, she grabs it and unfolds it, Billy’s chicken scratch hand writing adorns the page and it makes Max’s stomach churn.

_Max,_

_At first I was pissed off, really angry, cause you fucked me, well and truly. So I’m sitting here in this rat trap thinking about us. Fuck knows where I’m gonna hide this letter when I finish writing it. I started thinking that you were gonna screw me, turn me in, tell officer Friendly about us, but you didn’t._

_They’re letting me out tomorrow but they say we can’t talk, but not to worry, communication comes in different forms._

_Hasn’t been so bad. They play music a lot. I heard this one song, this chick from Canada, voice is like taking a shot of straight bourbon_ _on a cold day. She made me think of you. Can’t fucking remember what the songs called, but I remember some of the lyrics._

_You like your cruel games, but I am not so quick to break, I count my gain in blood and pain. I like it when it hurts like hell, there’s nothing you could do to me I wouldn’t do to myself. I will be bound to you in leather and chains. I’ll be your sister, your young bride, your daughter, your slave._

_Cute right?_

_Shouldn’t write too much more, pigs might notice. See you soon Maxxy._

_Yours and Nobody Else’s,_

_Billy Hargrove._

Max reads over the letter, it was almost surreal; rather than berating her or threatening her, he showed her a fucking song? She folds the paper and puts it back into the box.

When did he get into her room?

She checks her calendar, school starts back up in a couple weeks, Billy and Max would go back to spending every morning together. He would have to drive her to school, drive her home. He’d destroyed her skateboard so she couldn’t skate back.

Maybe the 5 mile walk wouldn’t be so bad.

*****

He’d forgotten how royally shit school was, he’d take the prison cell any day.

Billy slams the door of his camaro and watches Max like a hawk as she scurries inside like a field mouse.

The last weeks of Summer had been uneventful. Max was hardly home, her doctors visits took up most of her days while Billy was in the garage fixing the camaro; wanted it looking amazing by the time he got to school.

It was kind of hard being in the garage, his dick was always getting hard from the constant reminder of the time he was in here with Max. The way she sounded when she screamed. Her face destroyed and slick with spit and come.

Billy wanted his car pristine and perfect so that when he rolled up to school, all the guys would cum in their pants at the sight of him. He loved being the envy of every guy in Hawkins.

He drops his cigarette and stubs it out with his boot, Tommy Hagan is at his side as if the kid apperaited out of thin air. “Heard you were in jail over the summer.” Hagan had a bad habit of not minding his fucking business.

“Who’s asking?” Billy questions. Max has disappeared inside, he watches as Carol bounds up with her gang of hussies.

“Well if it isn’t bad boy Billy.” She pops her bubble gum. “How was your summer?”

Billy doesn’t even acknowledge her existence, just pushes past them all. These people were either stupid or whores; or both. Billy would rather drive head on into a semi truck than be around these fools.

Tommy calls after him but Billy ignores him, Tommy was annoying but he was smart enough to not push Billy when he was in a mood; it’d save him a black eye.

Although the was pissed off that Max had him kiss most of his Summer, he still wanted to spend the day with her in his bed.

When Max was with him, their bodies sweaty, her chest rising and falling quickly from how hard he’d just railed her, it was like he got a taste of Heaven.

Soon. He tells himself. Soon.

*****

Being invisible was difficult whilst wearing bandages and a cast. Almost everyone in her year asked her the same questions.

_“What happened?”_

_“Are you okay?”_

By third period, Max was exhausted. She was happy to be sitting in French because their teacher, Madamoiselle Dubois was strict and wanted silence.

The note lands on her text book and she opens it.

_I didn’t see you once they gave you back to your Mom._

_You okay?_

_-L_

She debates replying, and what would happen if she did. She slides to the paper under her textbook and turns her focus back to Madame Dubois.

Max hadn’t seen Lucas since she left the Byers’ care.

Neil and her Mom has sat Billy and Max down and explained the parameters of life after summer.

LOW. PROFILE.

The family had taken numerous blows from scandal over the closing weeks of Summer and now the Hargrove/Mayfield kids were being totally shut off from social interactions outside of schooling hours.

No friends. No parties. No Lucas.

Max was practically heartbroken, it was as if she’d just gotten Lucas back.

Max wasn’t confident enough to send any more letters to the Sinclair boy for fear of Billy finding out. For fear of someone catching on.

Max decides everything would be much more easier if she cut herself off completely.

The bell to signal lunch blares and Max collects her items and ducks out into the corridor.

She turns off to the girls bathroom and walks close to the lockers, avoiding the small crowd of people moving through the halls.

It’s quick as a flash, a maintence door swings open and Max is swept up into the darkness of mops and brooms and buckets.

“What the-“

Warm fingers dig into her hips and she knows exactly who it is.

“I know I said I’d wait, but fuck Max, you left me with serious blue balls.” His voice is full of need, he leans in and kisses her, she puts up a small fight but she’s practically useless at this point. “Max, stop.” He warns. “People will hear you. You want the kids at school to know?”

She shakes her head, “Billy please. Don’t do this to me again.” She’s so far away, her voice is gone, but her body is here.

_This wasn’t happening. This wasn’t happening_.

Bully lathers kisses down her neck, fiddles with his little sisters jeans and rugs them down. His fingers dig deeper into her porcelain flesh as he spins her around to face the wall, a hard task to accomplish with the both of them crammed into such a small space.

His fingers slide under her knickers and bunch the fabric together. The way he moves is almost expert.

His right hand rips her panties clean off her body at the exact moment he yanks her head to the side so his mouth covers hers to stifle her scream.

His dick pushes painfully against his already too tight jeans as he licks a clean strip up his fingers before wetting her hole as much as possible.

She grunts with discomfort as he pulls her to him, so he has better access.

“Open your mouth.” He commands, she does as she’s told and his dick twitches at the immediate obedience, he pushes her torn panties into her mouth and she gags at the sudden intrusion.

Her lungs are in her throat when his belt clinks and he unzips his pants.

“Max.” He huffs. He pushes himself against her, he was pretty stupid trying to do this here, she was gonna be tight. He hadn’t stretched her out in over a month; but he’d be fucked if he wasn’t gonna try. It was a matter of pushing and pulling.

She screams against the gag as he enters her.

“You’re like a fucking boa constrictor, baby.” He taunts.

Her eyes are welling with tears from both fear and humiliation and pain. How could this be happening again?

He doesn’t move after he’s gotten past the first hurdle, he waits for a moment before going any further. A shiver runs up his back by how good it feels to be buried inside his little sister, he pushes further into her until his hips rest against her arse. “Fuck Max, fuck, fuck, fuck.”

She’s crying, the tears wetting the fabric of her underwear, she hisses as Billy pulls out of her before slamming straight back in.

It was like the first time, the same feeling of being split in half. Billy was already so big to begin with and it didn’t help her in anyway that she was so small.

He’s finding it difficult to fuck her for a number of reasons, but he’s still trying to make it work. He rocks his hips as Max grips the shelving until her knuckles go white.

He tries to focus on her but can’t see much, there isn’t it of light in here; but he wishes he could see the way her little pussy swallows him whole.

His left hand runs up from her pelvis, across her stomach to rest over her bra. This was so hot, at any moment a janitor could come in or someone could hear them. A teacher could open the door and catch Billy balls deep inside of his teenage sister.

“Max.” He huffs, his balls tightening as he spills inside of her. She chokes, she can feel him emptying his balls inside of her. “Baby, fuck, fuck.”

Her response was involuntary, but she tightened around him, she cries into the fabric of her underwear as she rides out her orgasm; wishing, wanting, that her body wouldn’t betray her like this.

He leans down, nuzzling his head in between her shoulder and her neck and whispers sweet nothing into her ear. She doesn’t let go of the shelf as billy pulls out of her, tugging her undies from her mouth and using them to clean himself up before doing his jeans back up and buckling his belt.

He stuffs her dirty underwear into his back pocket and helps Max to get her bottoms back on.

He kisses her hard, his tongue in her mouth, before pulling back and telling her he couldn’t wait to get her home.

She watches as he opens the door ever so slightly, waiting for the right moment to duck out.

When he leaves she sinks to the ground and brings her knees to her chest.

_This was her fault. This was her fault. This was her fault_.

Joyce was right, Hop was right. Max should have listened.

She cleans her face of tears and leaves as well, not bothering to go to lunch, she just heads straight out into the car park. She wanted to get away. She wanted to escape.

As she walks across the black top, Tommy Hagan calls out to her.

“Whatcha doin’?” He questions, taking a drag of his cigarette.

She looks at him, “Hey, can you drive me home?”

He turns to his car and then looks her up and down, sure she was young but she was toned in all the right places and was kinda cute. Despite the bandages and the cast. “Sure.”

She follows him to his car and opens the door for her, she climbs in and Tommy shuts the door behind her.

His dick was already getting hard by the time he slid into the drivers seat.

Tommy knew that Max couldn’t be protected from Billy at all times, he starts his car and drives from the school, blaring a song Max had never heard before he tells her that he just has to make a quick pit stop first.

He turns off towards his house and Max leans back against the passenger side of Tommy’s car.

She hadn’t know it, but by escaping Billy for the afternoon, she had inadvertently dropped herself straight into the cobra den.


	10. Ball Jointed Doll

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You're so beautiful but so delicate  
> The porcelain cracks up your back and neck  
> In the body of a ball jointed doll  
> You're so fragile you can't move at all

Steve Harrington would never admit it, but _fucking hell_ Roberta Flack made some good music. He has his windows up while _Killing Me Softly_ blares through the cab of his car, he had taken the day off school to work at Scoops for a little extra cash. He was planning on buying Dustin a few knickknacks from the junk store for more of his inventions. 

He was kind of glad nobody from school could see him right now, adorning a Scoops uniform, cap and all, while he tried to match the slow smooth, dulcet pitch of Roberta’s voice.  
As the thought crossed his mind he watched Tommy’s car whiz passed him, was that Max in the passenger side?  
He turns his head to peak out the rear view mirror to check but all he can make out is the back of a head.

Better safer than sorry, he thinks. He slows down and turns the car around to follow behind Tommy, he wasn’t really going anywhere, he’d just finished work so he had nowhere to be, nobody would be waiting on him. 

He watches Tommy pull into his driveway and climb out of the car, a tuft of red hair is the first thing Steve notices when the passenger gets out. 

Max. 

He pulls up to the side and gets out of the car, closing the door behind him. Tommy turns his head and a look of panic flashes across his face for a brief moment. Max takes note of Steve as he makes his way up the drive to investigate further. 

“Alright, Harrington?” Tommy questions, flinging him his signature grin. 

“Why’s Max here?” 

“I was gonna drop her home but we needed to grab something from inside.” Tommy answers. 

“We? Surely you can get it yourself, she doesn’t need to go in with you.” He was immediately on the defensive about keeping Max out of the house. 

The young girl looked between both boys, “I _am_ here.” She says sternly. 

“C’mon Max.” Tommy tries to coax her inside, Steve watches the door before looking back to his former friend, his face is flushed pink under his freckles. 

“Why? Are you gonna mix her your specialty drink?” Anxiety smashed it’s way through Steve’s stomach, he needed to keep Max outside. 

“Fuck off and mind your business, _King Steve_.” Tommy mocks the boys former nickname. 

“Max, c’mon I’ll take you home.” Steve holds his hand out for Max. She stands between the two boys, slightly confused for an increment of a second. 

“Specialty drink?” She asks. A memory flashes of her in bed with Billy, he’s holding her close while he smokes a cigarette and tells her the recipe for the drink Tommy makes for girls. _Vodka, soda with just a dash of lemon and lime and the kicker?  
Roofies. _

_“Knocks ‘em right out. I’d never use the stuff myself. The girls go all limp and stiff like they’re dead.”_ Billy had told her. 

She looks at Tommy. “Were you gonna drug me?” Her chest rises and falls quickly and she stalks over to her brothers friend and stands in front of him. He’s almost got a foot on her but at this stage, she doesn’t care. “Were you gonna drug me, yes or no?” She asks again.

He chuckles softly. “It’s not like that.”

“Then what’s it like, Tommy. You said you were gonna drive me home. Why are we here? Why did I have to come inside?” She doesn’t take her eyes off him.

He caves in, Tommy Hagan never had a spine to save his life, so a little pressure from any side and he’d be spilling the truth like an open can of beans hitting the floor. “Oh c’mon Max, I thought it would be funny.” He tries to play it off like it was nothing serious.

Her knee is the first thing that connects to the sweet spot on Tommy’s body. Right in his groin, as he doubles over in shock and pain the second hit comes as her fist meets his nose; this sends Tommy to the ground. 

Max was small in stature but that didn’t mean she wasn’t strong, years of skateboarding and sports had given her just enough muscle mass so she’d be able to hold her own.  
And a childhood plagued by Billy meant she knew how to throw a killer left hook.

He’s on his knees gripping his nose with both hands as blood drops onto the cement driveway of his house. “ _You fucking bitch_!” He yells. “You broke my fucking nose! Fucking whore!” He alternates his hands, one on his nose, one on his dick. “My fuckin’ balls. What is your problem. Is everyone in your family a psycho?!”

Max promptly kicks his chest so he smashes back onto the ground. “If you ever come near me again, Tommy, I’ll castrate you myself.”

Steve watches the young girl, cast and all, as she stomps her way over to his car and climbs into the passenger side.  
Steve doesn’t even say anything to his former friend, just follows the fiery teenager to his car and drives away from the Hagan home.

As they travel out, Max tells Steve, in a whisper that’s so quiet he almost misses it, to take her somewhere out of this town.

It’s a silent trip as Steve takes her to a place he regards as his “safe spot”, it’s the quarry where Will Byers’ body had washed up two years prior. 

Steve realised after a while that nobody wanted to really go there, the false story of a child’s body was enough to keep even the truth seekers at bay.

Steve parks his car and they both walk for a short while to the edge of the quarry’s cliff, Max can see the water from below and for a moment she considers jumping; but she doesn’t, instead she sits down and swings her legs over the edge and Steve follows suit. 

He doesn’t say anything at first, just lets the cool air rush past them. He wasn’t one to force the party kids to do something they didn’t want to, he was their friend, not a parent - albeit most of the time he acted like it - he still tried to let them know he wasn’t going to make them talk if they didn’t want to. 

Max looks across the water, she hadn’t realised how big the quarry was until now, in fact she doesn’t think she’d ever been here before today. 

She tries to swallow the lump in her throat that never seems to go away and she silently wishes life were easier.

“Tommy and I were friends just before you and Billy moved to town, not that you guys had anything to do with it. We fell out the year Will went missing.” He picks up a stone and throws it into the water. “He said something about Nancy being a whore, I didn’t take it too well, he didn’t like the idea of me falling for a girl. Specially someone as sweet as Nancy.”

“King Steve?”

He winces slightly at the name, “Yeah, trust me, I was a different person back then.” He’s squinting at the afternoon sun.

“Who were you back then?” Max questions, for once it was nice to be the one doing the interrogating.

“I went to party’s, spent most nights with different girls on the nights I wasn’t raising some kind of hell with Tommy.” He admits. “I never understood the kind of stuff we could get away with until we pushed the limits, but everything comes to an end eventually, you know?”

She nods, resting back on her hands. “Everything good has to end at some stage.”

“Yeah, but it didn’t have to end how it did.” He mumbles.

They’re quiet for a moment, Max wants to peak inside of Steve’s past some more and Steve wants to ask Max who gave her the bracelet of bruises that he saw in his car months ago.

“How did you know that Tommy was going to drug you?” He asks.

Max pulls on of her feet up to hold her leg against her chest. “Billy told me.” 

_Billy_.

“What else did Billy tell you?”

“Tommy did that kind of stuff to a lot of girls, because he always had trouble getting with them himself.”

That much was true.

“Max?” Steve begins. “Do you remember that night I drove you to Lucas‘s house, I saw your wrist and you-“

“Steve.” She warns.

He doesn’t want to press but he wants to know, he wants to just _make sure_ he was just seeing what he wanted to see, not something that was actually there. “Max, I take care of you and the others. I’m supposed to protect you guys and it’s like; over the Summer I got so caught up with work that I just put you guys on the back burner.” He tosses a rock into the quarry. “I know I’m not your dad or anything like that, but I worry about you all.”

She doesn’t say anything, she just blocks the sun from her eyes and listens to him ramble. She’d learned over the year she’d been friends with Steve, that he likes to make speeches and trips over his own words when he tries to express how he’s feeling.  
She can’t help but zone out as he recounts how they met and everything they had been through together.

“The bottom line is, Max, if someone was hurting you, and I mean really hurting you, you wouldn’t be inclined to tell anybody because then you wouldn’t be Mad Max, would you? You’d be a weak little girl and you don’t want anyone to see you like that, do you?”

None of the kids could keep secrets from Steve, he knew them all too well, inside and out. It was almost like he had his own books on them; read them from cover to cover so it was easy to make the correct assumptions. 

The rich kid from down the road knew them all so well, it was hard to keep him out of the loop.

Max bites her nails, “Steve it’s hard, have you ever had to keep a secret? And I’m not talking about Dustin’s secrets, or not telling our parents where we go at 2 in the morning over the Summer. I mean a secret secret, almost as big as the demodogs and Hawkins Lab and as big as Jane’s abilities.” Last year seemed like a life time ago, all of the secrets melted into nothing compared to the one Max had been trying to hide.

“I’m eighteen, Max. Of course I’ve got secrets.” He tries to make light of the situation but the small Mayfield girl is in no mood for games.

“You remember on the news in 1982 about that tornado that basically obliterated that small town in Arkansas?” Max had watched in fear with her mother as the reporter counted the dead. “Do you have a secret that could cause that kind of hypothetical damage?”

“Yes.” He answers almost immediately and Max studies his face. “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.” He offers.

“You first.”

And he does go first, he tells the long shaky story of the beginning of the end of his friendship with Tommy Hagan.  
He starts in April of 1982, at seventeen years old he talked about one of his first ragers he ever threw. His father had gone out of town for the weekend and his mother was visiting her sister at the birth of a new child.  
That left King Steve alone in a massive nuclear family home, and he was going to exploit it for all it was worth.

He had originally planned on inviting over the more popular kids but decided to go all out; this was a full student body experience.  Before he knew it, the house was packed to the walls with pre pubescent horny kids drinking illegal alcohol and running absolute havoc through his house.

“Tommy was in the kitchen with Nancy’s friend, Barb, I think she was there because Nance dragged her along or something, I can’t really remember.” He explains. “I don’t even know who invited her, she was this by the book Christian, so it was a bit out of place her being there, but Tommy seemed to know her really well.” He keeps going and Max is getting goosebumps, it was almost like she was there. 

The night went on, some kids started to leave, others passed out in different parts of the Harrington home, Steve just needed to make sure no one passed out in the pool.

“I was going to lock the outside door when I saw Tommy carrying Barb upstairs. I asked him what he was doing and he said she’d had too much to drink and he was just taking her to lie down somewhere.” He looks away from Max for a moment and takes a breath. “It was weird, I’d been around so many drunk people, but none of them acted like Barb did. It was like she’d basically passed out, I don’t even think I remembered her having even one drink.”

He pauses but keeps going. “When I went up to check on her, Tommy was in there. She was totally out of it, she couldn’t even move. When I opened the door, she looked at me and I could see in her eyes that she was so far away, almost like she was floating and Tommy was just-“ he coughs softly. “Tommy was _fucking_ her and she wasn’t even alive.” He clarifies. “She was alive, but it was like she mentally wasn’t.” He quickly wipes a tear away from his eye and sniffs. “I pushed Tommy off her and kicked him out of the house but the damage was already done I suppose.”

“Did she know?” Max asks, Steve nods.

“Yeah, she knew. It totally messed her up.”

Max can already feel what he’s going to say before it’s out of his mouth so she braces herself for the blow.

“She killed herself a few months later. Nancy invited her back to the house, I think just to make her feel a little better cause she was totally messed up. But then she just.. disappeared. They found her body a few days later in the middle of Hawkins’ forest, she’d hung herself from one of the trees.”

Max is taken aback, she’d never heard about Barb, or about what had happened. Was she really that disconnected from everyday life in Hawkins?

“She had this note in her pocket, it was a bible verse or something. It’s seared into my mind. ‘Love is patient. Love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud; but he was impatient. He was not kind. He envied. He tried to boast. He was too proud. And this is not in Glory of our lord God, he will welcome me with open arms; and through him, I will live again.’” His voice shakes as he says it to Max. “My biggest regret is that I kept Tommy’s secret, I didn’t tell anybody and as a result, Barb died. If I could go back and undo what I did, if I had spoken up, maybe she would still be here.”

Max is silent as she sits beside him, listening to his heartbreaking story of being a simple bystander in an assault on a school mate. 

“Max, if something is happening to you, if someone is _hurting_ you, I will cut you a deal. If you let me help you, if you let me be there for you, I‘ll tell Hop what Tommy did and we can maybe get justice for you and for Barb.” His voice is low as he explains it all to her.

She thinks about it, weighs her options, makes a list in her head and then she speaks for the first time in what feels like a decade.

“He was going to give me $20.”

*****

The anger spread like wildfire and Billy wasn’t sure what set him off first; the fact that Max had ran off with Tommy, riding up to his house together or the fact that he’d heard it from a fucking _9th grader._

Billy saw red and cursed his way down the hallway of Hawkins High until he stopped at the lockers of that black cunt Sinclair and the rest of Max’s faggot friends.

“Hey, retards.” Billy grunted, a tooth pick hanging from his mouth. “Where’s Maxine.”

The party looked between each other before turning back to the older boy. “We don’t know.”

“‘Course you don’t. Little birdie told me she was off with Hagan.” He flicks the toothpick with his tongue. “And you know, My dad is gonna go pretty wild if he finds out.”

“She’s with Hagan?” Lucas asks.

Billy doesn’t even acknowledge his existence, even though he’s the reason Billy is talking to them in public. “If you see her back at school, make sure to tell her that her Mom and my Dad are gonna ship her off if she gets pregnant again.” He says stiffly.

“Wait.. Max was _pregnant_?” Mike asks, astonishment washing over him. “No way. I don’t buy it.”

“Y’know how she got that thing taken out of her stomach after her accident?”

“Yes.”

“Abortion.” Billy grins, carefully sounding out each syllable. “Tell that shit bird that she’s in trouble when I find her.” And with that he’s gone, leaving the mushroom cloud to settle amongst the group of boys, he can hear Lucas’s angered whisper amongst his friends as they debate about what Billy had said and if it was true or not.

Billy stalks his way out of the front doors and turns left, slipping out behind the theatre building to find Carol.

_Stupid Bitch_. He thinks.

She’s standing with a group of her friends as they smoke cigarettes and talk about which of the guys are the hottest, no doubt they’re talking up Billy right now. He’s fucked almost half the female student body since he arrived in Hawkins’ so he was infamous for more than one thing.

“Hey Hargrove.” Carol welcomes him, smoothing out her lipgloss with her pinky. “Whatcha doin’ in this part of town?” She’s always been flirtatious with him, even if she wasn’t with Hagan, Billy still wouldn’t touch her with a ten foot pole. 

Tommy had told him once, after they’d drank their body weight in beer, that he hated going down on Carol. Sure she was an easy fuck but he says her lips hang out like roast beef and she tastes like vinegar.  
Billy knew it was probably partly true and partly Tommy not wanting to admit he’s got no idea how to please a woman.

“Where’s Hagan?” Billy asks. 

“I’ll tell you,” She says, smiling sweetly, “if you do me a favour.” She takes a short drag of her cigarette; even in doing this Carol tried to look attractive as if the simple act of nicotine inhalation would make her look ugly.  
Her cheeks hollow out as she sucks in, before blowing out the smoke, she moves her jaw in a way that makes the smoke come out in perfect o’s.

“Okay. How about this.” Billy starts, he runs his hands through his hair. “You tell me where Tommy is and I don’t tell him what you and Jack Arbor did at Melanie’s party two weeks ago.”

She almost chokes on her cigarette when he says it. “What’s your damage, Hargrove?” She questions, eyes narrowing. “What? You spend a couple weeks in a holding cell and suddenly think your bright as sunshine?” 

He laughs, licking his teeth, he flashes his blue eyes Carol’s way and he can already see her getting wet under his gaze. “‘C’mon Carol, don’t be a bitch.”

She huffs, butting out her cigarette, “He’s at home. He always skips fourth period because his English teacher is a bitch to him. You should know his address.” She pushes past him and her friends follow behind.

Billy keeps walking towards the car park, he would make a short visit to Tommy’s house, he knew Max wouldn’t be there longer than usual, but Hagan had hell to pay for taking his little sister from school.

_ **** _

Her shoulders felt stiff as she walked back in through the school doors, Steve made sure he dropped her off right before the day ended so she could collect her things.  
He had even waited for her flushed cheeks to turn a normal pale colour and for her eyes to stop looking puffy and red.  
After their conversation at the quarry, she had a lot to think about and needed to head home so she could decide what she was gonna do.

The final bell rang and the hallways filled with teenagers in a rush to get home. She made her way to her locker and opened it, grabbing her bag and school books, she knew she was going to be in trouble for ditching most of the day but that was the least of her concerns at the moment.

“Max?” She closes her locker door and meets Lucas’s warm gaze. “Before you say anything, I know we aren’t supposed to talk so I’m gonna be quick. Meet me by the gymnasium in 10 minutes.” He walks past her without saying anything else and heads outside.

Something must be wrong, Lucas would never approach her so openly like that if nothing was wrong. She zips up her backpack and heads out towards the gymnasium. 

If she was already going to be in trouble she may as well go all out and not bother going home with Billy. 

Neil was being extra careful not to cause a scene at home, mostly because DCFS were still nosing around so Max was safe for now, her Mom always joked that Neil had an elephants memory so she’d surely pay for it later, but for now, she would be safe.

From her step dad that is.

Lucas is pacing back and forth when she approaches, he catches her as she walks over and he speaks instantly.

“Were you pregnant?” He questions.

Max’s heart instantly drops, how did he find out? She doesn’t answer.

“Max it’s a yes or no answer.” He says. He stands stiffly before her.

“Lucas I can explain.” She tries.

He drops his gaze, she can tell he’s trying not to cry. “Explain? Max that’s cheating. That’s literally the worst kind of cheating. We never even-“

“Lucas it’s not like that, I promise. Trust me.” She was trying to control her breathing, trying to keep sane. “Lucas it’s-“

“Just tell me Max, be honest. I know that Tommy is a senior so I get it, but you should have told me.” Lucas hisses. “Why’d you keep it a secret? Freshman shouldn’t be fucking seniors. Do you wanna be popular?”

“Tommy?” She questions. “Tommy Hagan? Lucas I would never.”

“Everyone knows you went to his house today, you ditched to be with him.”

Max grips the hem of her shirt. “He was driving me home Lucas, that’s all.” This wasn’t happening.

Lucas laughs in disbelief. “Billy said-“

“Billy said?” As if abusing her wasn’t enough, he was truly trying to destroy her life. “Why would you believe what Billy said?”

Lucas stares at her, holding her gaze. “Then tell me right now, a party promise, that you weren’t pregnant.”

Her bottom lip quivers, what was she supposed to say? How was she supposed to answer him?  
Lucas was the love of her life, it wasn’t gravity that kept her to the Earth’s surface, it was Lucas Sinclair.  
The stalker boy who followed her to the arcade, the boy with the bandana who kissed her behind the buses by the field where they had fought the demodogs.   
She had wanted to give all of her to him, wrapped in a box, her visceral pieces, her sweat meats; but Billy ruined all of that. He killed the parts of her that she had silently reserved for Lucas Sinclair, the boy on the other side of the town. The boy from the right side of the tracks. 

“Lucas.” 

He doesn’t wait for her response, he doesn’t want to hear her excuse, he just turns away and walks in the other direction, leaving her alone on the blacktop as she cries. 

No matter what she had thought before, no matter what she wanted to do, no matter the life she wanted to protect - the privacy she wanted to shield from the prying eyes of Hawkins’ residence - Billy would answer for everything he had done to her. 

He would answer for it all. 

She walks home, holding her sides as she heads to Cherry Lane. She tried her best not to feel sorry for herself as she walks across the sidewalk. 

She silently wished Billy hadn’t broken her skateboard so she could at least skate home, not that she’d be too coordinated after her accident. Her ribs had healed fine, but she was still a bit wobbly on her feet, she wasn’t sure how’d she’d go on her board. 

A car pulls up beside her and she already knows who it is when it stops on the grass beside her. 

“Get in the car Max.” Her brother yells from the driver side. 

Max stops and looks at him, he’s smoking a cigarette, his feather earring dangling as he leans down slightly to catch her face. 

“I’m not fucking around shit bird, get in.” 

She hesitates momentarily before opening up the door and climbing in. She rests against the leather seat and stares out the windscreen, she couldn’t acknowledge him, if she gave him her attention she’d surely go mad. 

Billy lets the car idle, the soft hum of the engine fills their silence. 

“Max, look at me.” He says slowly. “Look at me.” He says again. 

Max turns slowly to look at her brother, there’s nothing for a moment but his arm flies out and his hand catches her face and a loud crack cries over the rumble of the car engine. Max’s face jolts to the side and she doesn’t move, the pain spreads across her check and down her neck, her ear rings. 

“You’re lucky I hadn’t gone home yet, you little bitch. I don’t care what Neil says, I don’t care what officer friendly says, I’ll wait for you until you’re in my space at all hours of the day.” He grabs her chin and tugs her so she faces him. “You fucked up royally Max, going off with that Hagan faggot. I swear to god.” He reaches down and rubs her through her jeans. “Tell me what you did. Tell me what you did with him right now.” 

“Nothing.” She says, it’s hard to speak with how hard he’s gripping her face. “I promise.” 

“Then what did you do?” He pushes. 

“He took me to his house and I freaked out and I left. Billy I swear.” She lies, she was worried about how good she had gotten at lying over the past few months. “I thought he would drive me home, I promise.” 

He lets go of her face and drives away from the sidewalk, she could almost feel his anger rolling off him in waves. 

_ What did he have to be angry about? Why was he the only person who could be angry? Why was violence so engraved in the Hargrove men?  _

They drive in silence to the house and Billy pulls into the driveway, turning the car off and climbing out of his Camaro, slamming the door behind him. Max scurries behind him as he heads inside, Neil watches them as they come into the living room, his cold stare boring through the pair. 

“Sorry we’re late, Max needed to go to the library for school.” Billy says. 

Neil looks away from them, turning his attention back to the television, not even bothering to poke holes in his sons story. 

The pair go to separate areas, Billy in his room, Max in hers. She puts her bag by her dresser and climbs into bed, hugging her pillow to her chest and silently cries herself to sleep. 

*****

Her door creaked open and she opens her eyes slowly, how long had she been sleeping? 

Soft feet pad across her carpet and she feels her blanket lift up and her bed tip. Billy was home, when had he left? Where did he go? 

She breathes in deeply, the smell of alcohol filled her senses and she buried her nose into her pillow, she hoped she was dreaming. 

Warm hands snake up her shirt and rest just under bra, another hand pulls her waist against his crotch. 

“I love you.” His voice is soft against her skin. 

He rubs small circles against her skin, planting kisses on her neck, her skin burns each time his lips land. Max always saw a different side of Billy each time he replaced the blood in his veins with alcohol; but it never mattered how kind he was in these moments, it never excused what he had already done. 

“Are you awake?” He questions. 

“Go away.” She murmurs. “Get away from me.” 

“Don’t be like that.” He kisses her again. “Max.” 

“If you don’t get off me, I’ll scream bloody murder.” She threatens. 

Billy almost thinks she’s bluffing, but still pulls away from her. “Why?” He shuffles out of her bed and stands close to it. 

“Get out.” She growls. “Now.” 

He shuffles over to her wall and flicks her lights on, she shuts her eyes and blinks rapidly, her eyes trying to adjust to the sudden light. 

“I wanna talk to you.” He tried. 

She sits up in bed, her blanket slipping into her lap. “Enough.” She says. “Get out.” 

He stands his ground, “No, I wanna talk.” 

“Like how you talked to Lucas?” She says, she scoots across and swings her legs over the side, her toes grazing the carpet. 

He’s silent for a moment. “I didn’t mean it, Maxxy.” He coos. 

“Yes you did. If you didn’t mean it, you wouldn’t have said it.” She counters. 

He sways, she can tell he’s wasted, Billy can handle his alcohol on any given day, but it takes a lot for him to lose his balance. “Why are you being this way, don’t you love me anymore?” 

He blinks slowly, watching her. His shirt is unbuttoned lower than it normally is, she can see his bare chest, he’s necklace rests gently against his tanned skin. 

She takes a moment then answers. “No.” 

“You don’t mean that.” 

She knows that when Billy is this drunk, he won’t try anything, when he’s wasted he’s an entirely different person. Someone who wouldn’t dare be violent. 

So she takes advantage of the moment. 

“I do mean it.” 

“No.” His voice slightly breaks. 

“Yes.” She says again. 

“Max no you don’t. I love you, I do.” 

“You don’t.” She argues. “You have never loved me.” 

He sinks to his knees and crawls over to her, wrapping his arms around her waist, a tear rolls down his cheek and he buries his head in her lap. “I do. Max I do love you. I love you so much it hurts.” He murmurs into her crotch. 

“You don’t do the things you did to me to someone you love, Billy.” Max says dryly. It was strange to see him on his knees in front of her. “When you love someone you’re supposed to care for them. Be everything for them. You don’t hurt them or break their things.” She doesn’t sound like herself, she sounds like one of those women on the soap operas her Mom watches from time to time. 

Billy’s tears are soaking into her jeans, he pulls back and looks at her. Eyes red rimmed and puffy, his face contorted in pain, was this heartache or Billy coming to terms with the fact he had fucked up beyond repair? 

“Max, you can’t do this. I swear to god, Max. You’re everything to me, please, please don’t do this.” He begged, his breath dripped with the scent of whiskey, Max’s emotionless deliverance was unwavering as she continued. 

“I’m not your toy, Billy. I’m not something you can have embalmed and put in a trophy cabinet. I’m a person. I was a person.” She whispers, fighting back her own tears. She needs to be steady, she couldn’t keep falling for Billy’s tricks. 

She was stuck in a cycle. 

_ Abuse. Apologies. Kindness. Sympathy. Abuse. Apologies. Kindness. Sympathy.  _

Anytime he knew he’d done something bad, he would drown it out with whiskey and crawl on hands and knees to Max, to his girl, and beg for forgiveness. Beg his sister to reach inside of him and pull out the murky black tar that stained his insides. 

Only this time, she wasn’t going to be his dupe for a second longer; there was only so much she could take and her entire body vibrated with anger and anxiety. 

He wipes his eyes with his knuckles and tries to plead with his sister. “I’m sorry. You gotta believe me, Max.”

Max was stone faced and steady, yesterday’s affairs in the maintenance closet a distant memory. The incident with Lucas was fresh in her mind, Billy had knowingly gone out of his way to hurt her in the worst possible way, in a way that would completely and utterly ruin her.

_Lucas_.

“All of my life you have terrorised me, you would steal my things, break my toys, push me in the schoolyard. You would hit me, bruise me, make me out like I was your property like I had Billy Hargrove written all over my skin. You pushed away my friends, isolated me, made me so nobody would ever want me again but when will enough be enough for you, Billy?”

“This. This is enough for me.” He says gently. “You’re enough for me.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about.” She answers. “The first time, the first time you took everything from me.” She breathes in deeply. “I’ve seen monsters, Billy, I’ve seen horrible things, but you, you’re the worst of them all.”

He cries into her, resting his head against her lap. “Please Max.”

She doesn’t touch him, she leaves her hands at her sides, and just lets him cry. She’s not going to be complacent anymore, not going to let him run her around any longer.

“Get out.”

“Stop it, Max, don’t do this please.” He coughs, having a difficult time to regain his breath, he’s hyping himself up, doing this to himself.

“Get out before I scream.” She threatens, and this time he listens. He pulls himself up, composes himself as best he can and then slips out her door.

She gets up, turns her light off, crawls back into bed and tries to fall back into a sleep she know she won’t be able to have. 

Tomorrow, she would go with Steve to the Hawkins’ police department to turn both Billy and Tommy in.


	11. Rampage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He raised my hands in the backyard  
> He taught me to be a good shot  
> You love the sound of sorry  
> Even when you know i'm not  
> In the holy land of broken homes  
> You still pretend you don't know

After she had banished Billy from her room she had spent sometime thinking to herself about what she was going to do next, she took on board everything Steve had told her and knew that her best option, for her safety, was to go through with it all.

She tiptoes down the hallway, past Billy’s room and into the kitchen where she takes the phone off the hook, she had memorised Steve’s number long ago when she wanted to complete spontaneous trips to the arcade and Billy was being too much of an asshole to drive her in.

She waits for the rings and Steve answers right before the message tone.   
  


“Max, its late, are you okay?” Poor Steve, always filled with worry, always at the brim with anxiety.

“I’m okay.” She whispers. “Everyone’s asleep.”

“Oh, what do you need?” He asks.   


“Are you working tomorrow?”

“No, I have the day off, I was going to sleep in.” He says, she can hear how tired he is, a pang of guilt bloomed like a flower in the spring inside of her stomach.

“I was thinking about what we talked about this afternoon, at the quarry. I wanna do it. I wanna turn Billy and Tommy in.”

Steve doesn’t respond right away, and she wonders if he disconnected the call, but she can hear the faint breathing that signals his presence. “Steve?”

“I’m so proud of you.” He responds. “Well and truly.”

Tears spring to her eyes and she sniffs.

“I’ll pick you up at 11.”

She hears the creak of a loose floorboard and panic sets in. “I have to go.” She hangs up the phone before Steve can say his goodbyes and she looks around the corner of the kitchen wall to look down the hallway.

_No demodogs._

_No people._

She breathes a sigh of relief before scuttling back to her room and climbing under the covers, she knew tomorrow was really going to take it out of her and she needed as much rest as possible.

*****

Susan had cooked them all breakfast, Max fidgeted under her brothers gaze and picked at her food, she had regressed back to the stage where eating was the only thing in her life she could control. Billy didn’t eat in general, he never really ate much. His diet consisted of cigarettes, booze and rage; _rocket fuel._

After breakfast, Neil had decided to go to Starcourt for some new suits for work, the kids were not to go.

Max sat silently at the table and worked on her English Essay, they were reading _The Catcher in The Rye_ and they needed to write a page from a different characters point of view, so that the story was not solely told from Holden’s point.   
Max had chosen Phoebe Caufeild, more so for the poetic irony.   
Billy just sat and watched her intently as she scribbled in her note pad, ashing his cigarette as he examined her.

Everything she did in some way or another, pissed Billy off to no end, yet, he couldn’t help but be around her.

Even if it was to torment her.

“Max.”

She looks up from her books, her brow furrowed. “What?”

“Do you want to play a game?” He questions, butting out his cigarette in the ashtray beside him.

“A game?” She responds, her eyes glaze over and she’s back in the kitchen all those months ago, her chest restricts, when did all of the oxygen leave the room? “No.” Its all but a slither of the word.

He clenches his jaw at her response, fucking _brat._ “Come on, Maxxy, Maxxy, Maxxy. It’ll be fun. We don’t even have to leave the kitchen table, baby.” He tries to convince her to play with him but his games were deadly and she knew better now.

“No.” She says again, more sternly.

He narrows his eyes at her, he breathes in deeply and decides to play whether she wants to or not. “Its called two truths and a lie.” He begins. “We take turns, one of us says two truths and one lie and we need to decide which is the lie.’

“Billy, I’m not playing.”

He ignores her. “I’ll start.” He runs his hand through his hair, leaning back in his chair. “My name is Billy Hargrove. I am 18 years old. I did not come inside my little sister in the back of my Camaro on Wicketty Bridge two months ago.”

She ignores him.

“The last one, Max, you just missed it.” He laughs.

“Your turn.” He waits for her to speak but she’s silent. “That’s okay. I’ll go for you.”

He thinks for a moment, thinking of what to say. “My name is Maxine Mayfield. I have blonde hair and..” He leans forward, his arms on the table, he almost hisses the next sentence. “I was on the phone with Steve Harrington last night when I thought my brother was asleep.”

Her head snaps up at the same time he backhands her, sending her tumbling off of the chair and onto the kitchen floor. She scrambles to get up before he rounds the table and she almost makes it, but he’s quicker than her and sends her flying with a kick to the side.

“Billy don’t!” She screams. He stops for a split second and its enough time for her to crawl on her hands and knees under the table to try and escape him.

“Answer the fucking question Max. Which ones the lie, shit bird?” He tries to grab at her while she’s under the table but she has her knees pulled up to her chest and dares not move.

“Go away!”

He responds by upending the table onto its side and she screams in shock, getting to her feet and ducking around him to try and get to the front door; his hands loop her collar and pull her back, she nearly looses her footing but spins under his grip and tires with all her might to _shove_ him. It's a futile attempt and he chuckles.

He lets her go so he can grab her waist and pull her into him, she fights against him but Billy lifts weights and he’s always been stronger than her.   
She’s pudding compared to his graphite nature.

She pleads, she pleads for her life. Says all of her Billy’s, pleas spill out of her but they only stain the floor beneath them because Billy is in no mood to listen, he’s not in the head space to sit and pay attention to her as she cries and pleads and says her ‘ _No Billy’s’_ because quite frankly, he was over it.   
He was over everything she had put him through.

His hand snakes around her throat and she swings her leg back, almost kicking him in the groin, the surprise causes him to let go of his sister who dashes out of the living room and down the hall, there was plenty of places to hide, but there wouldn’t be anywhere that could protect Max from Billy.   
He was a tornado in the small house on Cherry Lane and he was quickly picking up debris as he stalked after the small red head.

She gets halfway down the hallway before he’s on her, a hand in her hair, dragging her down the hallway and back into the living room. He lets her go and she stumbles, hitting the ground on her hands and knees, he lets her stand and she retaliates by turning around to spit at him, its a piss poor effort and the wad of spit hits his shoulder.

Still makes him mad though.

She narrowly misses him as he swings at her wildly, laughing as he throws his left arm in an attempt to knock her on her ass. She steps back as quick as she can before sidestepping, trying to get past him but he’s bigger and stronger than she is and catches her around the waist, throwing her to the ground, her head smacking into the floor.

She rolls as he attempts to stomp down on her sternum, he was mad, he was almost crazy with rage.

She’s on her stomach trying to army crawl away from him, but he’s as big as a storm on the ocean and she’s as small as a fishing boat caught in the eye of it; he grabs at her ankles but she kicks blindly behind her and lands one, he tumbles back but regains his balance and swears silently to himself.

He staunches across the floor to her, standing over her to grab her shirt, lifting her slightly off of the ground before dropping her backdown, the wind is knocked out of her and she cusses. He grabs her again, turning her over this time, and grabbing under her arms to lift her so she’s standing; avoiding her as she tries to slap him.

“Don’t.” He warns, backhanding her, sending her into the coffee table, the vase holding flowers crashes to the ground and smashes. He would clean that up later, or even cop the beating for it.

She’s crying at this point, more so from fear than anything. “B-billy, please, please, I’m-”

Another boot kick sends her rolling across the floor.

Was he really going to kill her? Max’s head spun with every assault he landed on her body and she was on the verge of vomiting. She reaches for the television remote and throws it, hoping to quell his onslaught of punches.

She just misses Billy by a quarter of an inch.

“Why are you going to the police with Harrington?” He asks, the calm monotone of his voice sends shivers through Maxine. “You tryna fuck me over?”

She can only focus on trying to escape, trying to get away from him, trying to survive. She scoots behind the couch and manages to regain herself enough to stand up, Billy lunges to grab at her but she throws herself over the lounge, in the seconds it would take for him to get to her, she might be at the door, might be able to get out - her foot catches on a throw pillow and she tumbles to the ground.

_Fuck._

He takes this opportunity to straddle her, hooking her legs under his own in a way that would prevent her from kneeing him in the balls again like she’d done the night of her accident.

“I told you.” His hands make a perfect necklace around her tiny throat. “That I would kill you if you ever told anybody, I’d rather go to prison a murderer than a peado.” He applies pressure to her oesophagus. “And you chose wrong. You always choose wrong.” She gurgles as he presses down harder.

Her nails dig into her own flesh as she tries to slip her fingers under his in an attempt to pry them off her neck, when that fails, she tries to scratch at his neck but his anger is a deterrent to not feel, or be bothered by, what she’s doing.

“This is for your own good. You shouldn’t keep living if you hate life this much.” Her face is going purple and he can see little flecks of red as the blood vessels burst, her eyes are starting to go the same shade of red Tommy’s do when he’s stoned.

She tries to beat Billy with her fists, trying desperately to make him stop so she can suck air into her lungs, the pain her head is too much to bare, it's spreading everywhere from his hands up.   
From her ears, to her jaw, to her tongue.

 _Oxygen_. Her brain screams. _Oxygen_.

She’s getting weaker now and Billy truly has all the power and he refuses to let up and Max is dying, she’s well and truly dying.

She fumbles around the ground trying to find anything, something that could make Billy stop what he’s doing, her fingers wrap around a shard of glass from the vase that broke and she grips it tightly.

She’s surprised at the lack of pressure it takes for the glass shard to pierce Billy’s neck, and it shares a shocking similarity to the events that took place in the Byers’ home a year prior.

The shock, Billy reaches for the glass and pulls it in similar fashion to the needle.

When he inspects the glass, he’s realised what he’s done but not before a spray of blood pours from his neck and all over Max, it enters her mouth at the same time she sucks in air and she almost drowns in it.   
Billy hits the ground, Max turns over to spit out the blood and breathe in the sweet oxygen she desperately needs and Steve Harrington rings the doorbell.

He can see through the fly screen what’s happened and launched immediately into action, he bursts through the door and directly onto Billy, gripping his throat as tightly as he can; applying pressure to the wound to stop the bleeding and tries to make sure Max is okay at the same time.

It was like he had left his body, he’d taken first aid training back in high school because he thought it might look good on a college application; but at least now it had some kind of use to him.

Max is still coughing when she crawls over to Billy who’s eyes are darting between the pair, fear a more prominent figure behind the azure colour.

Steve yells at Max to call 911 and she does in the best way she can, Billy had caused some damage to her throat and she was rasping when she tried to explain to the operator what was going on but all she could manage was “Please. Ambulance. Cherry Lane.”

She doesn’t even put the phone on the receiver, just grabs tea towels and rushes them over to Steve who tries to use them to stop the bleeding as much as he can.

“What the fuck.”

*****

Max watches as the EMT’s wheel Billy’s body across the pavement outside of her house and load him into the back of the ambulance.

It was strange to think that just moments ago he was on the verge of killing her - but now he was covered in a white sheet, a ventilator over is nose and mouth, gauze and tape around his neck.

She looks towards the house, Steve is being questioned by a Sheriff’s deputy, Neil is holding Susan as she cries the pair had gotten to the house at the same time as the ambulance did.

She doesn’t really feel the handcuffs when Hopper slips them around her thin wrists, the click as the slip into place is so distant from where she is.

“C’mon kid.” He opens the door and helps her inside, she sits back, her head resting against the leather. “We gotta go down to the station.”

She doesn’t answer him, she just sits there silently, turning her head to look out of the cruiser window. Her Mom is crying into Neil’s chest who is trying to usher her inside, into the thick of the carnage.  
She wonders who is going to be the one to clean Billy’s blood from the floor.

“Is he gonna die?” She manages to ask, her voice still so raspy and far from her own.

Hopper is silent as they drive, but he does steal a glance of her in the mirror.

“We can only hope.” He says softly before taking the turn towards Hawkins’ Police Department.

When he pulls up, he doesn’t move, just stares out the windscreen as he speaks to her. “Listen Max, whatever happens to your brother, we’re gonna take care of you, we’re gonna make sure you’re okay.”

She can feel her brothers dried blood flake off of her face.

“What we need to do is get you inside and grab a statement. Although her deserved it, you still committed a crime and we need to treat this as we would as any normal day.” He opens the door and jumps out of the cruiser, opening her door and helping her get out.

As the midday sun hits her face causing the already cracking blood to dry out more, she’s reminded of a poem Dustin showed her once in english;

“ _We’re the same, we’re both rabid animals. Got sick heads and minds we were both born feral.”_

Jim helps her inside, she’s moving through the motions of life and doesn’t fight against him when he opens the holding cell door and lets her walk in, before he closes the door, he takes off her cuffs and she turns to face him.

He looks Max over and takes in her appearance, she looks reminiscent of an animal in the wild that’s just been shot.

Blood covers her from eyes to sternum, her hair unkempt and messy, a bruise already forming around her neck in the shape of Billy’s hands, red spots cover her face in replacement of her freckles and her eyes are red and blood shot.

“I let you down, kid.” He tries not to cry, but it’s so hard. He’s not sure this is even Maxine Mayfield standing five foot three with no shoes in front of him.

Her chest rose and fell harshly as she watched him, there was no life in her eyes, it was almost like someone had taken a black marker and drew over her blue. She blinks softly, her skeletal body almost devoured by crimson; it was enough to make anyone cry. “I really let you down.”

He sticks his arm through the bars and reaches for Max’s hands, she lets him take it, too tired, too broken to even try and fight against the physical contact. “I’ll get you a wash cloth and some warm water so you can clean yourself up. There’s even showers here if you want to shower.”

He lets go of her hand. “Before you get cleaned up, we need to take a few polaroids for evidence. I’ll be back in a couple minutes with one of the deputies.”

She backs away slightly from the bars and walks slowly over to the bed bolted to the wall, she crawls on top of it, assuming the foetal position and staring blankly at the yellow paint of the holding cell.

A single tear rolls down the police chiefs cheek as he watches her, this wasn’t even a girl, it was a shell. A carcass left for vultures to pick meat from the bone.

He was sure that if the entire precinct collapsed in on itself, Max would still be shaking.   
Billy had reduced the fiery Mad Max to a balloon emptied of helium.

He walks back to his office to grab the camera, he would due his due diligence as an officer of the law and he would document Max’s injuries. He would also process her as any normal offender of the law.

But he would sure as shit make sure Billy Hargrove rotted in a prison cell, or found his way at the business end of a Smith & Wesson.

Either way his ultimate goal was to keep Max alive.


	12. A Marvellous Persona

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One day you will be tried, on the execution line.   
> He'll strap you in and you will fry,  
> like fireworks on the Fourth of July

Max felt like one of those mannequins at the department store her mother always tried to drag her to for the weekends she couldn’t escape to the arcade.   
One of the female officers lifts her arm and holds it, the elbow bending in softly, and the familiar _click_ of the polaroid fills the small interview room.  
  
She wasn’t sure how long they had been in here, taking these photos, but she was so exhausted; the adrenaline from this morning running out of her body in a steady stream and it took all she had to not collapse under the weight of her heavy soul.

They lift her chin up in order to get a close up on the bruising left behind by Billy’s hands, the split lip.   
  
When they’re done, they take her into the department showers and let her clean herself up, the warm water mixing with blood and turning it an off shade of pink as it circles the drain before disappearing into the pipes.   
Her joints ache, her muscles tense, she momentarily wonders where Billy is; if he’s dead, dying, if he bled out in the ambulance on the way to the hospital.  
  
The taps squeal when Max turns the water off, her body trembles and she’s not quite sure if its from the cold or from how hard she’s crying; she wants everything to stop, wants the whole world to turn on its own again.   
Her vocabulary is swallowed up by an insurmountable group of ‘what if’s?’.  
  
What if she had told Hopper everything weeks ago?  
What if she hadn’t been so afraid of Billy?  
What if she hadn’t stayed for breakfast this morning and met Steve at the arcade like originally planned?  
  
The last few months leading up to this point could have been avoided had she not been so fucking _weak._   
Billy was right, she was good for nothing; her worth only measured in the amount of times Billy could get his prick inside of her.   
  
The towel she wraps around herself offers her no warmth, the small shaving mirror plastered to the wall is warped and distorted, a cheap one only for use by the men in the Sheriffs office. She was so far gone from who she was before Summer had started, before the first time Billy opened her up.

Her cheeks were hallowed out, her eyes sunken. She had almost aged five years since they returned her to sender just before Billy’s initial release.   
A soft knock on the bathroom door pulls her from her thoughts and she opens it just a fraction of the way, its Hop, he isn’t looking but his large hands are extended out, he’s holding clothes.

“Jane said you could borrow these.” He shakes them lightly in her direction and Max takes them silently, closing the door.  
  
Max had always been physically bigger than Jane Hopper, more so in muscle mass than anything, but Jane also liked to wear baggy clothes. They were more comfortable for her, not so restricting when it came to a fight, so even if Max hadn’t lost all of the weight she had, she still would’ve been able to fit into the clothes easily enough.  
Except this time, it was almost like she swam in them.   
  
She exits the bathroom and Hop is waiting for her, he takes her back to her cell and waits for her to walk in, closing the door behind her.  
  
“Look, kid, if there’s anybody you want me to call-”   
  
“I don’t have anybody.” She says, looking at her hands.   
  
He watches her, still reminiscent of a deer caught in head lights, waiting for the full weight of a truck to run her down, but he doesn’t say anything else, doesn’t push her past her limits, so he leaves her alone. He has a few calls to make anyway, needs to get her a lawyer, let Joyce know where she is, call the hospital, speak with the Department of Family and Child Services, and fill out a fucking _shit load_ of paperwork.  
This was the most excitement the department had seen since the Byers’ boy went missing two years prior, but it carried the same weight, everyone knew Max now. Had grown close to her because she was part of Jim’s family, so although this case was pretty big for the tiny town in Indiana, it was also one of the hardest.  
  
Jim had worked in the police force for decades, but nothing chilled him more to the bone than this case did.

*****

  
Damage control, tying up loose ends, filling in the blanks; they were all well and truly accustomed to the way things worked when shit hit the hypothetical fan, so it was no surprise that Joyce immediately spun webs and ran circles around Hopper on all of the things they could do.  
  
“Self defence.” She says, pacing his office back and forth, a cigarette shaking in her hand. “It was obviously self defence Hop.”   
  
“Joyce, with her track record, it’s gonna be difficult for self defence to stick in court.” He didn’t like to admit it, but he was right. Max had a bad habit of recanting on the things she said, even if she got a good lawyer it would be really easy for the defence to paint Max as a liar.

“Bullshit.” Joyce spits, “She’s a kid, Hopper. How can she be expected to be so open about something like this?”

  
It would’ve been a funny scene, how domestic they both looked, similarities to parents Max should have had, it _could_ have been funny had the circumstances been different. Except they weren’t, this wasn’t a conversation debating schools for their child, or the best sports for her to take up; this was trying to assist Max in figuring out how to keep her safe from the boy that had been raping her for the better half of this passed year.

“Joyce, we aren’t going to get anywhere if you don’t just _sit down_.” The Mother obliges reluctantly and slumps into the chair across from Hopper. “We do have some good news to come out of all of this, though.”

She butts her cigarette out with every ounce of aggression she can muster. “Oh yeah?”

“Ashleigh has offered to pay for Max’s legal fees, she grew so close to her during their time together that she wants to offer whatever support she can.” He rubs his face, he was so exhausted and it hadn’t even been 24 hours. “I know that it’s hard, Joyce, this is all so fucked up, but the only thing that we can do is just play it by ear.”

Joyce didn’t want to have to play it by ear, she just wanted everything to be fine, wanted Max to be okay and not sitting in a jail cell waiting to possibly go to jail for attempted murder. “Hopper-”

“Joyce, I need you to trust me on this one, please.” He was being as sincere as he possibly could be, truth rolling off his tongue with ease; it was all so scary for Joyce and it was hard to imagine how the more terrifying it must be for Max.   
  
“What about Billy?” She asks, she hoped he was dead, or currently dying.   
  
“He’s stable.”

“So you can arrest him?”

“Not yet.”

“What do you mean, not yet?” She presses.

“It’s compl-”   
  
“Jim Hopper if you tell me it's _complicated_ one more goddamn time, I will rip the top off of this desk.” Joyce Byers was 5 foot nothing, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t be scary when she wanted to be.

“We can’t have them both in the same place, not after last time.” He recalls Max’s reluctance to openly admit what Billy was doing after they had come face to face in the police department weeks prior. He was disappointed that this had all come to a head so incredibly quickly. “I’ve sent a few officers up to the Hospital and they’re going to detain him until I can get to him myself.”

A knock on his door interrupts their conversation and Hopper calls the person in.

“Chief Hopper, the Harrington boy is here.”

*****

“We were at the quarry when she told me what had happened.” He sips gingerly from his coffee that the receptionist had provided him when he entered the precinct. “It was so… scary.” He admits.

“What exactly did she say to you?” Hop asks, resting with his back against his desk. Joyce had left shortly after Steve arrived to grab food and drink for Max.

“Billy had been, he was.” The very thought made Steve’s skin crawl. “He’d been raping her for a while, passed it off as a game at first, and then just did it whenever he wanted.” Steve rarely got the skeevies, but this was one of those times for sure and he hated it.

“I appreciate you coming up here to tell me this kid, especially considering you were at the house. They treated you for shock at the hospital, they let you go?”

“Yeah. They said I just kinda left my body, I mean, it was weird and all, but I think I’m fine for the most part. I guess?” He says, not much scared their little gaggle of misfits anymore, not after everything they’d seen over the past few year.

“I don’t wanna discredit you kid, but she didn’t tell anybody, and those she did tell she took her story back pretty quickly. What made you so different?” Hop asks.

“I was coming home from work about three days ago, I passed by Tommy Hagan’s house and saw him with Max, so I got out of the car and was originally gonna take her home, but we drove up to the quarry instead. She was so distraught, so full of anger and rage. I’d never seen her like that before. We started talking and I told her about Barb.”

“The Holland’s girl?”

Steve nods, “Yeah.” He leans over and puts the empty coffee cup on the desk next to Hop’s hand. “I told her about that night and everything that happened with Barb and it earned her trust so she told me about Billy and everything he had done”   
  
“With all due respect, kid, Barbara Holland’s story is a lot different from Max’s.”   
  
“But it isn’t.” Hop looks confused so Steve continues. “I suppose you’ve heard all of the rumours?”

“Yeah, she lost her virginity to the Hagan boy and the guilt was too much for her.”

Steve shakes his head. “It wasn’t by choice.”

“What the fuck is it with the boys in this town?”

“Hop, I promised Max that if she actually followed through on pressing the charges against Billy, I would make sure Tommy would go down as well.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll get that son of a bitch too.”

“One more thing.” Steve interjects, standing up. “We were meant to be coming down to the precinct today. Right after breakfast, just before- that’s why I was at the house when I was.”

  
  
*****

  
By 5:30pm, all of Hawkins had heard about the incident, they didn’t know all of the nitty gritty details, but they did know the ambulance and police were in the drive of Cherry Lane to drag a presumably dead Billy Hargrove to the hospital and put the smaller Maxine Mayfield in the back of a police cruiser.

She wondered what people were saying, small towns bred small minds that got the wheels of small talk turning.

_“I always knew they were bad news.”_

_“Do you think she killed him?”_

_“She’s going away for life.”_

She rests her head against the bars of the holding cell, staring down at Joyce’s withered hands. The rest of the party knew what had happened, but they weren’t allowed to see her. Joyce and Hop thought it would be a bad idea if her friends saw her confined in a cage like a zoo animal.

“Do you want something else to eat, Max?” Joyce asks. They were both sitting on the floor, across from each other, only separated by bars.

Max looks up, coated in warmth from Joyce’s eyes, they weren’t full of pity or sadness or the things Max couldn’t bare to see, it was just wonder and kindness and worry. She shakes her head but offers Joyce a small smile, slipping her hand through the space in the bars so she can hold her hand.

Joyce was the only person in Max’s life she could trust because she knew Joyce would never try and hurt her, would never attempt to do things to her that Billy would or that Tommy Hagan had tried to do.

She was at peace here, with her friends Mother, despite being under lock and key. Hop had informed her that her lawyer would be here in less than an hour and then they could have a proper conversation, he’d broken a lot of the rules for Max throughout the day, but he didn’t want to run the risk of her incriminating herself when she wasn’t in the right mindset or while somebody who knew what they were talking about wasn’t there with her.

It was all just touch and go at this point, the waiting was half the battle, the rest came later and Max knew that. She used to watch a lot of crime shows on the T.V with her Dad, even if it was dramatised garbage made to generate views; but she kind of had an idea what was install for her.

She hadn’t asked after him since she arrived, part of her couldn’t even force the words out of her mouth, her throat closing up around each syllable, every letter.   
Was he dead? Had she wounded him to the point of no repair?   
How was it possible to have so much inside of such a small body?

When she was in the fourth grade, her Mom and Dad had to make the difficult decision to put the family dog down, it had been hit by a car and had its back legs completely crushed, it would drag itself around yard, covered in its own blood.   
She wasn’t sure why they had to have the vet put the dog to sleep, and her Dad tried to explain it to her in the best way any person could try and explain death to a nine year old.

_“Sometimes Max, no matter what you can do, you have to let go. Sometimes the giving in is better than carry around all of that pain.”  
  
_ She still cried, said her goodbyes and held her Dad’s hand till the very end, when her dogs eyelids got too heavy to keep open, when it finally gave its last breath.   
  
Max felt as though she was nearing the end, maybe it was time for her to give in. Joyce squeezes her hand and whispers to Max to just hold on a little longer.

Everything would be okay in the end, everything was always supposed to be okay in the end, right?

Right?

*****

Here’s how the events unfolded after Max’s lawyer finally arrived.

Rushed into a small room, her lawyer asking if she had answered any questions, sitting her down across from Hop in interview room 2, her lawyer setting the ground rules and an insurmountable collection of;  
  
“She isn’t answering that.”

“Max don’t say anything.”   
“My client isn’t answering that question.”

“That is out of the question.”   
“No.”

She had never had somebody answer so many questions on her behalf before and it made her head spin. She couldn’t get a word out, couldn’t explain her side of the story and she couldn’t understand why her lawyer kept brushing everything under the rug.

“I am here just to make sure that my client is okay, and that she isn’t going to enter into a forced confession.” She’s a middle aged woman, her hair already starting to grey around her hair line, she wore a nice clean cut suit jacket and pencil skirt.   
Max had seen a lot of businesswomen over the past few months.   
  
They let Max go shortly after she gave some minor details and went over her original statement from a few weeks prior, Hopper and Max’s lawyer standing in the hallway, talking about everything that had transpired.

“Look lady-”  
  
“I introduced myself to you before, Chief Hopper, my name is Margery Noebrook, not _lady_. You have to understand that my client is of legal age to be tried as an adult in the state of Indiana, so this can go one of two ways. And I am hopping for the lesser of two evils.” She was all clean cut and professional, like she had just peeled herself out of a Forbes magazine.

“I am understanding of that, but at the same time, we need Max to explain what is about to happen, for her sake more than anything.” Hopper pushes.

“She can explain what happened, but at this point in time, it seems as though you are trying to direct her towards a particular narrative, and even if that narrative _is_ for the best, it can also be just as damaging. A fourteen year old girl stands accused of putting a four inch shard of glass into the jugular of her older brothers neck, and she is refusing to give anybody a reason why. You have a statement that is a month old, and even then that may not hold up because when you were _getting_ that statement she recanted it within the same sentence.” She opens up her small satchel and puts the case file into it before fixing it up on her shoulder. “I can try and talk to her, and to anybody that has spoken to her, but unless she is willing to provide me with her own statement, I am afraid that she might be charged with grievous bodily harm and Billy will walk free.”

“Can’t you see the bruises around her neck?” Hop tries, he was frightened all would be for naught if Max was still too scared to talk.

“The defence could easily spin that around to make it out like he was the one protecting himself.”   
  
“What can we do?” Hopper asks, running his hand through his hair.   
  
“Pull every shred of evidence we have together and hope to God we can save her.”

  
  
******

  
  
It was surreal, being in a large courtroom with people she didn’t know deciding her fate, Max cold barely breathe.  
  
Max sat front and centre at the prosecution desk, behind her sat a few people from town. Her friends where there as well, accompanied by their parents. She was nervous about telling her story in front of all of her friends.   
She sat patiently at the the prosecution desk as her lawyer addressed the jury with her opening statement.   
  
The twelve jurors were mainly comprised of women, Margery said this would work in Max’s favour but all she wanted to do was for this all to be over, to be away from all of this mess that Billy had created, that she had a small portion in helping to build.   
  
The way that Margery speaks is angelic, poetic almost with how she can build everything up with the things she wants people to hear.   
  
“Ladies and gentleman of the jury, I want you all to close your eyes for a moment and imagine your life at fourteen. Remember what it felt like to spend time with your friends, to always be in a position of never ending safety. To know what you that you could come home from school and be greeted with the open arms of your loving parents, to know that there was always going to be safety within the structures of its walls.” She doesn’t take her eyes off of the jury as she continues to speak. “I want you to remember how it felt to go to the arcade after school, how warm your skin felt during Summer when you would spend all day at the pool, at the park or on the baseball diamond. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, do you know what it sounds like when the world is ending? Maxine Mayfield would be able to tell you that it sounds like the screeching tires on a blacktop. It sounds like sirens of an ambulance, the slow and steady beep of an EKG machine after an emergency abortion. The defence wants to tell you that Billy Hargrove is innocent, that he is a saviour, a caregiver. They want to have you believe that Max acted with no care and with only violence in her heart. But I am here to prove to you that beyond a reasonable doubt, Max is innocent of the intent to cause deadly harm and that she was only acting out of self defence in order to save her own life.”   
  
After she stops talking, she returns to the prosecution desk and sits next to Max and the entire case kicks off into overdrive. Max is called to the witness stand and she approaches slowly.   
As she sat at the witness stand, she could see the way Billy was tense and hunched over at the defendants bench; he wasn’t looking at her. She’d never been so scared before her in her entire life; she looks around the courtroom and her eyes fall on her Mom, who looks at her and offers her a meek smile, she’s sitting next to the other parents of her friends.

She can see Nancy and Jonathon in the crowd too.

“Now, Maxine, can I call you Max?” Her lawyer asks, from behind the prosecution bench.

Max nods softly, watching the older woman as she smiles back at the young girl. “If you would be so kind Max, can you point out to the ladies and gentlemen of the jury, your step brother?”

Max looks at the small congregation of people who would decide Billy’s fate of guilty or not guilty.

With a shaking finger, she points it at Billy, the jury are silent.

“Thank you Max, and could you also point out the man who has been raping you continuously for the past 2 months?” Her lawyer asks.

Max’s breathing quickens and her eyes drop, she doesn’t want to be here, she doesn’t want to be here.

Still, she lifts her hand again and points to her step brother.

The jury whisper amongst themselves, and Billy still doesn’t look up.

“The jury should note the witness has singled out the defendant Billy Hargrove.” Her lawyer brushes her hand over some papers and looks at Max again, “now, I need to ask you a few things Max, will you be able to answer them for me?”

“Yes.” Max answers softly, swallowing hard.

“What happened the first time?”

She begins the long winding tale of the first time Billy raped her in her bedroom while she was tied down, as her lawyer continues to ask Max to relive and retell those horrifying moments, Max does.

She’s in full blown tears by the time she reaches the night she was hit by the car; even though Margery had heard the stories before, she still fought back tears at the atrocities the young teen had faced.

Max snuck a look at the jury and a few of the female members were crying too.

“You’re very, very strong for telling us that Max, I can’t imagine how difficult it must have been; but I do have to ask. Why didn’t you tell anyone?”

Max swallows hard, looking at her Mother who is also fighting back tears before admitting the truth. “Billy said if I ever told anyone, he would cut my Mom into little pieces. When I didn’t do what I was told, if I wasn’t a good little girl like he wanted me to be, he threatened my friend, Lucas Sinclair, he said he would-“ she wipes tears from her eyes. “He said he would kill him too, and he’d make me watch him do it.”

“And you didn’t think that these might be empty threats, Max?” Margery asks, her arms folded as she watches the small girl carefully.

Max shakes her head, “No, I know my brother better than that. If he says he’ll do something sinister, he just needs to be angry enough to do it.”

“No further questions your honour.” Her lawyer says, sitting down.

Max didn’t know it in that moment, but the easiest part was over.

The public defender then stood up, he was a short fat man, Max could see he was balding. “Hi Max.” He tries to offer her a smile.

“Maxine.” She corrects him, she’d rather Hell freeze over than have the person trying to keep her brother out of prison talk to her the way her friends do.

“Maxine, my name is Leo, I have a few questions for you as well.” He stays standing next to Billy. “The first one is very easy, how old are you?”

“14.” She answers, wringing her hands in her lap. “My birthday is June 23rd.” She adds, she’s not sure why maybe he might’ve asked her.

“And you’re going through puberty?” Max blushes at the question but nods.

“Ah, I see, I have a daughter your age, she’s crazy about boys. Are you crazy about boys too, Max?” Leo asks, staring at the red headed girl who looked five times too small for the witness box.

“Uhm.” Max whispers. “Not all boys, just one.” She answers.

“Oh? And may I ask who that would be?” He questions further.

She swallows, her brow furrowing. “Lucas Sinclair.”

“And do you do anything with Lucas that you did with Billy?” Leo questions. Max is stunned and looks at Margery.

“Objection, your honour.” Margery calls out. “What relevance does that have to the case?”

“Overruled, the witness will answer the question.” The judge dismisses, staring at Leo.

“Yes, sir.” Max answers.

Leo looks over his notes before turning his face towards Max who is currently wringing her hands behind the witness stand, he has this aura about him that frightens the young girl but she knows she needs to be strong and brave.   
“Max, last year you had an incident with Billy that involved a bat with..” He takes a glance at his night trying to perpetuate the idea he’s forgotten what he was going to say but she knows he hasn’t. “..nails in it, correct?”

“Yes.” She answers.

He moves around the side of the desk, and shoots her a sly smile. “Now why would you attack Billy with such a weapon?”

Why was he bringing this up? How was this relevant?

“Billy was attacking my friends, it was the only way I could defend myself and protect my friends.” She says.

Leo raises his eyebrows and rubs his chin. “Understood, sometimes the only thing we can do in situations like that is protect ourselves, but on the contrary Maxine, why did he attack your friends? I can understand your brother has had some issues with anger, but surely he wouldn’t just become aggressive completely unprompted, right?”

She looks at her brothers defender, she bites her lip in anxiety and answers the question with the utmost honesty. “He was coming to look for me, he - I had gone to spend time with my friends and I forgot to tell him where I was.”

“So your friends were there, was anyone else there?” He continues to press.

“Yes.”

“Who?”

“Steve Harrington.”

“And how old is he?”

“Eighteen.”

Leo examines Maxine’s expression before finishing his statement. “Ah, I see. I just want to make sure I have everything correct and know that I have heard you correctly, you didn’t tell your brother where you were going, he then came to look for you, probably worried sick, and found you at a strangers home with other children he didn’t know and in the company of an older boy. Correct?”

She swallows hard. “Yes.” She spits the word in pure disgust, even at fourteen she still knew what kind of game he was playing at.

“One could say that he didn’t act unprompted, I wouldn’t even say it was aggression, I would say it was the worry of a brother that caused him to act out of impulse and you thanked him by swinging at him with a deadly weapon.” A statement over a question and Max wanted to vomit right then and there.

“But-”

Leo cuts her off. “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, if you could open your eyes to see that his aggression was prompted out of fear and not anger, perhaps his past transgressions might not indicate to a violent future, or present being of Billy Hargrove.”

“Objection your honour!” Max’s lawyer stands up behind her desk. “How is the past at all relevant to this case? Billy worrying over Max’s wellbeing over 14 months ago does not at all erase his current vindictive behaviour. Looking out for your sister on one occasion does to give him the right nor the permission to then rape her over a year later.”

“Sustained, please only stick to the current case on hand, Mr Letcher.”

He throws a tight lipped smile towards the judge, “Your honour, the relevance my question has to the case on hand is quite applicable in this very sense; in 1983, Maxine Mayfield took a nail studded bat to her step brothers groin with intent to cause harm and then a _year_ later she shoved a shard of glass into his throat in an attempt to _kill_.” Leo explains, making sure he’s speaking as clear as the sky on a summers day. “If she was in a position of great danger and was so upset by the so called atrocities committed by my client, then why did she recant the charges bought against her brother weeks before? Why did she not tell anybody about what was happening to her?”

He picks up a sheet of paper from his files and reads from it. “She was taken to Hawkins Police Department whilst Mr Hargrove was in holding, she then left after refusing to speak on the matter. Max, please, fill in the blanks. If you were in such a situation where you felt the need to cause bodily harm in order to protect yourself, then _why_ did you drop all charges against your brother? Was it a bid for attention?”

“It wasn’t for attention, I was pregnant.” Max tries to defend herself.

“Ah, yes, the pregnancy.” Leo puts down his paper. “Did they perform a DNA test at the hospital?”

“No.”

“Then what’s to say the baby was in anyway my clients? Whats to say you didn’t have a little too much fun with Lucas Sinclair and needed to cover your tracks?”

“That’s not true! That’s not true at all!” Max screams. “You have no idea what I went through! What happened to me! He tortured me for months! He raped me, he almost killed me! Anything I did to him was to protect myself! Fuck you! Fuck you!” She wails, anger spilling out of her.

“Mrs Noebrook, control your witness.” The judge orders.

Margery nods, “Could I ask for a quick recess, your honour, in order to give her some fresh air.”

“Sustained. Court will resume within twenty five minutes.”

*****

  
  
“Max you need to control yourself when you’re on the stand. I know it’s hard, I know that Leo is pushing you but he’s getting what he wants.” Margery tries to explain.

“I don’t understand, why is he doing this?” She wipes her eyes, trying to sip from the bottle of water Joyce had given her.

“I don’t think it's personal, it's his job but you need to understand that if he pushes you and you get angry like that again then he’s proving to the jury that you can be violent when pushed. Aggression is the main focus of this case, MAx. Leo wanted to show the jury that you can be angry, and you proved him right.”

“I’m sorry.” Max cries.

Margery sighs, leaning against the desk in the prosecutions office, “I have some good news though.”

Max looks up, wiping her eyes. “Yeah?”

“They arrested the Hagan boy, opened up the case again of Barbara Holland. They went over to his house and searched it and they found a book of all of his sexual conquests. He’d written in great deal what he had done to Barbara and how he slipped the drugs into her drink.” Margery says. She had gotten word from Hopper a few days prior.

“So he’s gonna be tried as well?”

“Not exactly.”

“What do you mean?”

Margery looks at Max, wondering how to broach the situation. “While in holding, they found more evidence that he hadn’t just assaulted Barb. He was notorious for assaulting girls through the high school and even in the middle school as well.”

“What? He was _that_ bad?” It wasn’t surprising to her, but girls in the _middle school_ as well? How large was his victim list?

“He was, and he knew that as well. The evidence was too much, and he probably knew he wouldn’t be able to get off scot free.”

Max understands where this is going. “You mean he-”  
  
“One of the Sheriff’s deputy’s found him hanging in his cell early this morning, he knew he wasn’t going to get out of this, so he took the easy way out.”

Tommy Hagan had killed himself, and Max could only think that it was good that he didn’t go to court or be sentenced to a jail sentence. Death was the only thing people like Tommy deserved.

  
  
*****

  
Billy is behind the witness stand when court resumes and Max is practically vibrating with fear, she wonders how this is going to pan out.   
She was surprised considering it was rare for the defence to have their own take the stand, because the cross examination was always so brutal.

Leo is the first to approach Billy, just as cocky as the person he’s defending.

“Afternoon.”

“Hello.” Billy responds.

“Would you mind identifying yourself for the court?” Leo asks.

“My name is Billy Hargrove.” He tilts his head to the side slightly.

“You are on trial accused of quite a few things, the main issue here is that you are accused of abusing your younger sister. Do you have anything to say on this matter?”

“All I have to say is that I didn’t do anything she didn’t want me to do.” Billy answers.

“Would you mind telling us what it was you both did?” Leo adjusts his suit jacket and lets Billy explain it from his point of view.

“Sex, you know, all the stuff chicks like. My sister is a real fiend though, always begging for it. I get that all that incest stuff is wrong, but that’s the only thing I did wrong.” He shrugs his shoulders slightly.

“Max had quite significant bruises on her neck, in her statement she says you strangled her. Is this true?”

“Of course it is.” Billy touches his throat, he wasn’t wearing a bandage so his stitches were visible. “I only did it because she was trying to ruin my life, she had me in holding down at the police department weeks before and then tried to do it again. I got angry, and so I choked her, I was only trying to calm her down, stop her from being so crazy.”

Leo looks down at the desk, before grabbing a few polaroids and approaching the judge. “The defence is submitting exhibit 11 B into evidence.”   
  
The polaroids are the ones taken of Max at the station when she was covered in blood, they are past around the jury so they can all see.   
  
“All of that blood covering Miss Mayfield is a direct result of her attack on my client. As you can see, the blood covers almost all of her body.” He walks over to the desk and looks at Billy. “Your father had two rules, didn’t he?”

  
Yes, Sir.”   
  
“Could you please enlighten the court at what those rules are?”

“Respect and responsibility.”

“Was there anything else you needed to do?”

“I had to take care of Max, at all times. I needed to always pick her up from school and take here their of a morning, make sure she went anywhere she wanted and got their safely.”

“And what would happen if you didn’t comply or follow the rules?”

Billy’s jaw tightens, and Max knew the last thing he wanted to do was admit what really went on behind close doors.

“My Dad, he’s, he’s a disciplinary man. When Max got out of my sight, or she started doing her own thing, I paid for it.” He says through gritted teeth.

“Can you elaborate on the ‘paid for it’ part?”

Billy looks pained, having to air out his own dirty laundry was something he never really enjoyed doing. “My old man loves the belt, he’d-” He clears his throat, “He’d hit me with it. Sometimes punch me, was never shy about kicking either.”   
  
“And a majority of these beatings came as a direct result of your sisters disobedience?” Leo asks.

“Yes, sir.”

“In a statement made the the first responders, your entire house was turned upside down. What happened the morning Miss Mayfield stabbed you?”

“We had a fight, which got pretty out of hand. When I get angry, I sometimes throw things, and she kept pushing me.” Billy says, explaining in his own events what took place the day Max stuck the glass shard in his throat.

“What was the fight about?”

“She told me she was planning on going down to the police station to turn me in, said she was going to see me rot in jail. I got mad and flipped out.”

“You didn’t intend to kill her?”

No, sir.”

“The defence rests, your honour.”

Margery Noebrook was a shark in the courtroom, Max had heard this statement made by Ashleigh when she was explaining to Joyce how good she was. Her heart was beating like bongo drum in her chest when Margery stood up to then ask Billy her round of questions.

“Hello, Billy.” She smiles at him, he returns it and says hello back.

“When did you move to Hawkins?” She questions, fixing her glasses with her forefinger.

“Last year.” He answers.

“What do you think of the place? I’ve only been here a few weeks for this case, would you recommend a place here?”

Billy openly scoffs, “No, this place is so backwater. Always smells like pig shit.”

“Ah.” She nods in understanding, and smiles down at the papers on her desk. “If you hate it so much, then why did you leave California?”

She almost chokes on her water, and her eyes dart up to Billy who immediately tenses in her chair, Max had no idea Margery would bring up the move at al during the trial.

“Excuse me?” Billy questions.

“I asked why you left California.”

“Objection, your honour, this doesn’t relate to the case at all!” Leo calls out.

“Overruled, the defendant will answer the question.”

Billy throws the judge his signature death stare and then turns his attention back to Margery. “Misunderstanding.” He says, hoping his one worded response will be enough to get him off the hook.

“A misunderstanding, is that it?” She picks up a sheet of paper and reads over it. “A misunderstanding that left one Californian teen in a coma for three months?”

The corner of Billy’s mouth twitches and he crosses his arms.

“What kind of misunderstanding does that kind of damage?” She has him backed into a corner, and Max knew all too well what happens when Billy has nowhere to go. He bites.

“He was teasing Max.” Billy answers, tongue darting out across his lips. “That up to your standards?”

Her smile is sweet, the faux creme in a Twinkie would have nothing on how sweetly she was smiling at Billy. “In your statement, Mr Hargrove, it says here that the boy asked Max to a school dance and you overheard and totally lost control. Does the happen often? You losing control?”

“No.”

“But you just said during your previous round of questions, that you get angry and throw things. I’m pretty sure that’s a symptom of loss of control, wouldn’t you say so?”

“Objection! Leading the witness!”

“Mrs Noebrook, this is your first warning.”

“My apologies your honour.” She puts the statement down and leans forward slightly on her desk, “Do you love your sister, Billy?”

“Yes.”

“In what kind of way?”

His brow furrows, he’s obviously confused. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“It’s a simple questions, I asked if you love your sister, now I want to know if you love her in a way a brother should love their sister; or in a way a fisherman loves their biggest catch.”

“That’s not-”  
  
“Let me answer your question for you.” She steps out from behind the desk and begins to pace across the open area in front of the witness stand. “You love Max, in your own way and that way is formed solely on the basis of control and submission; you wanted to own Max, in every possible way. So you found ways to completely break her down into dust, you crushed her spirit, you crushed her hope, you crushed everything and the joy you got from that was so immeasurable that you would have done anything to keep her.” Billy tries to interject but Margery doesn’t let him. “The love you have for your sister is a tumour that nearly killed you both. Let me tell you what I think, you couldn’t live without her, and you couldn’t live seeing anybody else with her, so you threw her to the floor in your house in Cherry Lane and you tried to own the very very last piece of her puzzle. Her death. Except she’s stronger than you could have ever believed and that’s why you killed her.”

He tries to speak again, but she holds her hand up and he _hates_ that, hates that this woman is taking the reins.

“Now, you are going to get to watch her grow up and move on with her life while you are behind bars, while you rot in jail for the things you did to her, and you are going to need to stomach the narcotic feeling that comes with being alone in a prison cell without anybody to control.”

“You fucking slag! Get fucked! You’ve got no clue where this going! Look at me you uppity cunt!” Billy roars, the bailiff crosses the room and helps the police pull Billy off the witness stand. “I’ll fucking kill you! You fucking cunt! You don’t know me!”

They drag Billy away and out of the courtroom while the judge tries to maintain order.

Maybe she’s hearing things, but as Margery sits down, she thinks she can hear her whisper ‘Gotcha’ under her breath.

  
*****  
  


“The prosecution would like to submit into evidence exhibit 21 A.” She hands a laminated sheet to the judge and then takes another sheet over to Susan, handing it to her. “The prosecution requests that the witness Susan Hargrove read the evidence for the court.”   
  
Susan looks at the judge, confusion clearly on her face.

“Objection, your honour, what relevance does the witness reading the evidence have? Can’t the prosecution do that?” Leo stands up, almost red in the face.   
  
“Miss Noebrook, do you have a reason as to why the witness must read the evidence opposed to yourself?” The judge questions, looking at the lawyer over her bifocals

“The relevance of this will make sense very soon, your honour.” She shoots a sweet smile back.

“Sustained, the witness will read the evidence to the court.” She moves in her chair and Susan swallows hard, taking a shaky breath before reading.

“Maxine Mayfield's rules, as certified by Billy Hargrove.” She looks visibly uncomfortable. “Rule number one, do not go anywhere without me. Rule number two, no decisions will be made without my consideration and approval.” She keeps going, as instructed and Max squirms in her chair. Susan reads through them all carefully and does not look up; her mouth forms a thin line when she gets to rule twelve. “When I call you into my room, you will be on your knees waiting for me.” She puts the laminated sheet down and looks at Margery, stone faced as she says the final rule. “No Lucas Sinclair.”

“That wasn’t the first time you read those rules, is it, Mrs Hargrove?” The younger woman questions.

Her eyes dart to the jury, “Uhm.”

“Need I remind you that you are under oath, Mrs Hargrove.”

“No. It isn’t.” She snaps.

Max is surprised by the answer and doesn’t do well at hiding it.

“When was the first time you read them?” Margery questions, walking over to the jury to hand the laminated sheet to them so they can read through them themselves.

“The night of Maxine’s accident.” She says softly. “My hus- Neil and I stopped by the house before going to the hospital, I wanted to get clothes for Max and that’s when I saw them.”

“And where were the rules?”   
  
“Nailed to the wall, above her bed.”

“I want to make sure that I understand this correctly. You went home, after hearing your daughter was hit by a car to collect her a change of clothes, normal mother behaviour. You then saw a list of rules written by her older brother; with rule twelve clearly indicating some form of foul play and your initial reaction was to do what?” Margery questions.

Susan looks down. “I tore it off the wall.”

“And then?”

“I put it in the recycling bin outside.”

“Your reaction to seeing clear indication that your fourteen year old daughter was being harmed, wasto rip it from the wall and put it in the bin? Not once did you think to call the authorities or maybe contact Chief Jim Hopper who was handling the hit and run?” Susan was getting more and more uncomfortable as Margery continued to throw blow after blow.

“They’re rules, everyone has-” She’s cut off.   
  
“Rules and expectations set by their parents is a normal constant in a child’s life. Those rules should not be set by an older sibling, those same rules should not be listed out as though the child is a pet or object for display, your lack of care in this instance towards your daughter shows that you would rather uphold a certain image of your family than actually protect something you helped to create. Maxine is fourteen years old and you let something that could have saved her fly under the radar; do you know that tampering with evidence is a crime, Mrs Hargrove?” Margery was damn good at her job despite her young age.

“I love my daughter and I would do anything to protect her.” Susan is crying now, she’s dabbing at her eyes with her handkerchief.

Margery shakes her head, crossing her arms over her chest. “No, Susan, you don’t. You carried Max to term for nine months, you gave birth to her, swaddled her and helped her learn and grow and then you pulled the rug out from under her when you continued to stand by and let her older brother rape her continuously, over and over again.” She’s spitting every word as she drills into Max’s mother. “You were complacent, you did nothing. What is surprising to me and a majority of this court room, is the fact that your daughter was present at the breakfast table every morning with stomach pains, bleeding, missing periods, inclusive of losing so much weight she was almost skeletal and you did nothing. You don’t love your daughter, you never loved her, Mrs Hargrove, you only did what every woman in the 70’s was expected to do. Get married, have a child, and flive in a flashy house and you didn’t care what went on or what happened in order for you to maintain that American Dream.” Margery makes a point of turning around and pointing at Joyce Byers. “That woman right there has more of a right to call herself Max’s mother than you ever possibly could or deserve to.”

She’s lost control now with her crying, it's ugly and hard and she’s struggling to catch her breath.

“The prosecution rests, your honour.”

  
  
*****

After three weeks, the Jury only spends three hours pooling over all of the evidence before exiting back into the Jury stand.   
  
“Has the jury come to a decision?”   
  
“We have your honour.” The foreman answers, she’s a short middle aged woman, who stands taller than most ready to give the verdict. “On the charges of child endangerment, we find the defendant guilty on all charges. On the charges of sexual misconduct with a minor we find the defendant guilty on all charges. On the charges of grievous bodily harm we find the defendant guilty on all charges.”   
  
“Thank you.” The judge turns her attention to Billy, who is standing waiting for his sentence. Even now, at the risk of his life being written away, he still looked cocky; so sure of himself.

“Mr Hargrove, you stand here in my court and you don’t seem to care.” She looks over all of the evidence on her desk, and continues. “When your father met Mrs Hargrove, they brought two families together and you were given a sister. Over the years you did your very best to destroy, dominant and try and kill her. Over the past few months you took everything from her, impregnated her and then tried to strangle her when you discovered she was finally going to turn you over to the authorities. What you did to your sister is nothing short of evil, sinister and outright callous; you do not seem to hold any empathy for your sister at all, nor any regret for your actions and the things you did to her.”

Billy licks his teeth, holding his hands in front of him.

“The jury finds you guilty on all charges, with no doubt in my mind that they also feel the same as I do in this very moment. I want you to feel even a small shred of the pain you put your sister through and the only way to do that is to sentence you with the full extent of the law. On all charges you are found guilty, for the charges of child endangerment you will serve a full sentence of four years, with no chance of parole. For the charges of sexual misconduct with a minor, you will serve a maximum of eight years with no chance of parole, this will be service in conjunction with the previous term, for the charges of grievous bodily harm you will serve a maximum sentence of five years, this will also be served in conjunction to the previous sentence. Mr Hargrove this means that your total term to be served will be a maximum of seventeen years with no possibility of parole.” She takes her glasses off and leans back in her chair. “I will also be approving a protection order for the prosecution meaning that when you are released from prison, you will not be allowed to be within three hundred fifty three feet of your sister. Do you understand these charges as they have been read to you?”

“Yes, your honour.” Billy answers, coughing softly. He doesn’t show any emotions, he’s stone faced as he accepts the charges.

“I would like to speak with Susan Hargrove, please.”

Max’s mother stands as she is asked and looks at the judge who leans slightly forward.

“Mrs Hargrove, I wanted to speak with you personally, as I have three children of my own. My daughter just graduated from law school, I am happy that she is following in my steps. Mrs Noebrook made a good point earlier, and I have taken that on board. For tampering with evidence, I find you guilty on all charges and you will serve a maximum of 90 days in the county jail.”   
  
Susan’s gasp is audible, but the Judge’s vindication doesn’t stop there.

“I will be removing Max from your custody and will be awarding Joyce Byers custody until Miss Mayfield turns eighteen where she can then make judgements as to whether she wishes to have you in her life. During this period of time, the protection order will be extended from Mr Hargrove across to yourself where you will not be allowed within three hundred fifty feet of your daughter. Do you understand these charges as they have been read to you?”

Susan’s sobbing echoes through the courtroom but she manages to croak out a yes in response to the Judge.  
  
She smacks her gavel once, signalling the end of the trial.

  
**SEVENTEEN YEARS LATER**

  
  
She stretches, rolling over in bed to snuggle up closer to him. His cologne is still strong and despite having smelt it every day for the past fourteen years, she can never get enough of it. He instinctively moves his arm to cover her so he can drag her in closer to him, wanting to be completely covered by her.   
  
“Good morning.” She murmurs, still not opening her eyes.   
  
“Morning.” Her mumbles back, his voice thick with sleep.

“How’d you sleep?” She finally opens her eyes to look at him, her husband.

“Very well, thank you.” He kisses her, leaning into her further and she grabs as much of him as she can.   
  
She almost couldn’t believe it, she had woken up beside Lucas every morning since they made it to college, but no matter what day of the week, what hour it was, he always managed to make her feel so loved, so safe.   
He pulls the covers up around her, keeping her as close to him as he can and Max drowns in his warmth.

The door creaks and small feet pad across the floor, the bed shits and a chubby face greets the both of them.

“Mommy, Daddy, you have to wake up.” Lucas pulls her further into the bed so she can get under the covers with them, her shrill laughter following her.

“No baby, I think you need to go to sleep!” He tickles her, she screams with laughter, squirming between her parents, she calls out to Max for help who only pushes her further into Lucas.

“Mommy no!” Her little hands trying to grab at Lucas’ hands with little to no effort.

He stops tickling her and kisses her softly on the head. “What do you want for pancakes little bee?”

“Pancakes?” She questions, her large brown eyes watching her Dad.

“Pancakes it is, why don’t you go and get them started and we’ll meet you out there?”

She agrees excitedly, clambering her way out of the bed and running down the hallway.

“How are you feeling?” Lucas asks her, getting out of bed himself.

“I’m okay, honestly, it’s completely fine.” Max makes her way over to the door to get her dressing gown, wrapping it around herself. “You don’t need to worry about me. It’s been over a month and we haven’t heard anything.”

“Possibly because he isn’t aware we moved to London.” He pulls a white shirt over his head.

“Lucas, I promise that it’s okay, it’s been seventeen years, I’m not that same defenceless girl I used to be.” She walks over to him and kisses him quickly.

“You know that all I want to do is keep you as safe as I possibly can.” Her sweet, caring stalker boy.

She looks at him with all of the adoration she can muster, smiling at him as she explains it to him as simply as she can. “Lucas, even in 1984, with everything, when I had those small moments with you, I felt safer than I had in the entire time I was with Billy. Safety never comes with being away from the thing that hurts you, its found in people and you have been the safest thing in my entire life, I love you and I am always going to be safe with you. I know that you are worried, but we’re safe here. Never forget that.”

He smiles at her before taking her hand and heading out into the kitchen with her to cook a pancake breakfast for their daughter, all of the dark murky water of the past was a long forgotten puddle, all that mattered now was Max, Lucas and the family they both had in London, far away from Hawkins Indian, far away from the Upside Down and the monsters that hid in the shadows and a million miles away from her brother.

  
Max takes a letter from the cabinet and pops outside, she had kept in her calendar Billy’s release date and had wanted to finally get out all of her feelings for him. She walks across the pavement and drops the letter into the mailbox.   
She wraps her robe around her, waves hello to her neighbour, and heads back inside.

No matter what had happened, no matter where she was now, this was a life she was finally content with and one that she was so grateful she had to fight to keep.

*****

  
  
 _07/02/2001  
Billy,  
  
Seventeen years has gone by surprisingly quickly, occasionally I had the luxury of forgetting you, sometimes you never even crossed my mind.   
It’s taken me a while to write you this letter, and I was partly worried to do so, but I also know that you aren’t dumb enough to try and find me; I doubt highly you would want to end up back in the place you _just _left._

_For a very long time, I was scared of you. You stole my childhood from me, robbed me of everything I could’ve given to somebody who I loved. You had me under your thumb for so long during the 80’s and it’s taken my so long to heal from you._

_When you were sentenced, I couldn’t believe it, but part of me was rejoicing in the fact that I was finally,_ finally _safe from you. That I would be kept away from you, and I would never want to trade that for the world._

_I went away to college, I got a degree, and I left Hawkins, I never looked back. When I turned Eighteen, I didn’t see a real reason to talk to Susan or Neil or to have them in my life anymore, they enabled you and all of your rancid behaviour and I had grown accustomed to a life full of love and kindness with the Byers’ that I would never trade that for anything, or for a time to be back with a Mother who left me alone with you to do all of those horrible things you derived pleasure from._

_I know you are going to want to find me, I know you better than you think, Billy, we are connected forever.  
If you try and find me, just know that you won’t, know that my family and I are somewhere you will never be able to reach and I want you to imagine my world that you used to hold in your hands, spinning in its own orbit; a universe you will never _ever _be able to get your hands on._

_You did everything you could to try and kill me, burn my light and snuff me out but I survived. You made me_ stronger _than I ever kidded myself to believe I was. Growing up with you was war, hell, a prison, and I am so thankful I_ got out _and survived._

_I hope that your life works out for you Billy, and I hope you keep your nose out of trouble._

_Live your life knowing, that I will never be a part of it._

_Sincerely,  
Maxine ‘Max’ Sinclair._


End file.
